By Sara Gold, Eastman IP
Jeremy Evans has certainly hit it out of the ballpark with his legal career. Nine years ago he started his solo law firm California Sports Lawyer, which specializes in sports, entertainment, and media law. Now, he runs a thriving practice and is the incoming president of the California Lawyers Association, the largest voluntary statewide bar association in the nation.
Originally based in San Diego but now located in Los Angeles, Evans handles contractual, intellectual property, deal-making and negotiation matters for a variety of clients, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to athletes, entertainers, studios, and film producers.
The youngest of nine children, Evans is the first person in his family to attend undergraduate school. He studied political science at UCLA and then, wanting a change of pace, moved to San Diego to attend Thomas Jefferson School of Law.
While in law school, Evans discovered his passion for sports law as a three-time competitor in the Tulane Law International Baseball Arbitration Competition. He also served as Student Bar Association president and founded Thomas Jefferson’s National Sports Law Negotiation Competition, which held its tenth annual tournament last fall. These experiences stood out to him among his other experiences, which included civil litigation, criminal defense, and a judicial clerkship.
“After having had this wide range of experiences, I learned that I wanted to work in sports and entertainment from the transactional side,” Evans said. “Instead of waiting for someone to hire me, I wanted to do it on my own.”
Though excited about his passion, Evans had no idea how to start and run a business. He started out by reading books on the subject and building a professional network. Starting with a list of five attorneys, his circle quickly grew to 60 attorneys over the course of three months.
Attorney at California Sports Lawyer®
“I met with all these attorneys and asked them the basic questions: how do you get clients, how do you market yourself, how do you avoid getting sued, how do you start an office, how do you hire somebody?,” Evans said. “By harnessing the collective wisdom of the community, I was able to save so many years of heartache and gain some valuable insight.”
In starting his virtual law practice, Evans learned the importance of branding strategically, making himself easily accessible to clients, and maintaining a presence in the legal community.
While a new lawyer in San Diego, Evans served as a New Lawyer Division board member and chair of the SDCBA Entertainment and Sports Law Section. He also ran the SDCBA’s Diversity Fellowship Program for two years. At Thomas Jefferson, Evans continued to chair the Sports Law Negotiation Competition alongside serving as director of the school’s Center for Sports Law and Policy.
In 2017, Evans decided to move back to Los Angeles, where he grew up, in order to be in the heart of the sports and entertainment industries. He earned his LLM in Entertainment, Sports, and Media Law and his MBA in Entertainment, Media, and Sports Management, both from Pepperdine University, and is now a professor in the sports management graduate programs at California State University Long Beach and American Public University & American Military University.
Evans is an avid writer, with articles published in the San Diego Lawyer magazine, Dodgers Nation, and the ABA Entertainment and Sports Lawyer journal, among others. He has always been a creative writer, mostly of short stories. Although the formalism of legal writing was initially challenging for him, he says learning the art of legal writing has molded him into a better writer and communicator. Now, as a writer on sports and entertainment law, he can blend the legal and creative aspects of writing together in discussing topics he enjoys.
“It’s never too late to open up the creative side of yourself,” Evans said. “When I first started writing and publishing about the law, I was very nervous about how people would receive it. But eventually you get into a groove and you figure out what the expectations are. I try to embrace uncertainty and take advantage of new opportunities even when it might seem scary.”
About two years ago, Evans forayed into starting his own weekly podcast, Bleav in Sports Law with Jeremy Evans. Ranked number 1 on Feedspot’s list of the Top 25 Sports Law Podcasts this year, Evans’s podcast discusses trends, legal issues, and current events related to sports, entertainment, and media; he also interviews prominent sports law attorneys, general counsel for sports teams such as the Oakland Athletics and Tennessee Titans, and other exciting guests.
Ultimately he loves sports and entertainment law because he enjoys helping parties come together to make a deal.
“In many other legal areas, it’s all about breaking things apart or people fighting over something,” he said. “I chose this career because I want to see parties build something together—for example, reaching a sports apparel deal for an NFL Hall of Famer; a distribution or production deal for a documentary or television series; or a brand partnership. Putting deals together is like my bread and butter.”
Soon, Evans will be not just the California Sports Lawyer but also president of the California Lawyers Association (CLA). He has been involved with the CLA since before it formally branched off from the California State Bar in 2018. Over the past three years, he rose from secretary to vice president and now president of the organization for a two-year term starting in September.
“I’m very much an entrepreneur and I love to build things, so I am looking forward to continuing to build the brand of CLA and growing the organization’s notoriety and influence in the United States and beyond,” Evans said. “I want to see the CLA grow while at the same time encouraging people’s growth, developing leaders, and doing good service for the community.”
New lawyers can get involved in the CLA through the various sections, including the Solo and Small Firm section, and through the California Young Lawyers Association. Evans’s general advice for new lawyers is to embrace uncertainty and not shy away from opportunities due to fear of failure.
“Never be too comfortable and always look for opportunities to challenge yourself,” he said. “I choose to surround myself with encouraging mentors and I let those voices be louder than others. And yes, failure sometimes can come with taking a risk, but I learn so much more from failing than succeeding, and I can take lessons learned from those failures.”