Baseball Union’s Legal Fees Spike in Runup to New Labor Talks

The union representing Major League Baseball players more than tripled its payout in legal fees to nearly $5.2 million in 2024, according to a recent Labor Department filing.

The MLB Players Association reported last year a legal tab of roughly $1.7 million for 2023. Winston & Strawn—a sports law powerhouse whose co-executive chairman Jeffrey Kessler is an antitrust litigator and frequent adviser to professional ballplayers and other athletes—led about two-dozen law firms in handling legal and labor matters for the organization. The union also paid more than $200,000 to government affairs firms for legislative and lobbying work, and another $174,200 to more than a dozen arbitrators.

Winston, at more than $2.8 million in fees, was followed by Kessler’s former law firm, Weil, Gotshal & Manges, at about $472,100; Sidley Austin at $281,000, and Latham & Watkins at $200,500. Sidley senior counsel Virginia Seitz is another longtime lawyer for the New York-based union. Seitz represented the players 30 years ago when they secured a key ruling from then federal district court judge and future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor ending the labor impasse that had canceled the end of the league’s 1994 season.

That dispute led MLB’s 1995 season to begin a month late, on April 25, but it also smoothed the way for three decades of labor peace, aside from a brief pandemic-related lockout. A new labor battle, however, could be on the horizon with the collective bargaining agreement between players and owners of the league’s 30 teams set to expire after the 2026 season.

MLBPA’s March 31 financial statement for the first time details salaries and payments to in-house lawyers, executives, and other professionals working not just for the union, but also its for-profit subsidiary and trust.

Growing Union

Under a 2022 agreement, the MLBPA began representing players in minor league baseball, in part due to the efforts of Harrison “Harry” Marino, a former minor leaguer who went on to work at Williams & Connolly.

Marino joined the MLBPA as an assistant general counsel in 2022 before parting ways with the union less than a year later. In 2024, he joined some players in calling for the union to be more transparent in its disclosures, a move that prominent MLB agent and attorney Scott Boras publicly called a “coup d’état” seeking to undermine support for the organization’s leadership.

The MLBPA’s executive director, ex-player Anthony “Tony” Clark, earned roughly $3.5 million last year. The union disclosed it paid more than $7.8 million in total compensation to 14 lawyers. At the top of the list is former Weil partner Bruce Meyer, the union’s deputy executive director and lead labor negotiator, at nearly $1.6 million. Matthew Nussbaum, its general counsel, received more than $901,000, while his predecessor, senior adviser Ian Penny, was paid $896,200.

Another attorney, Shawn McDonald, a nephew of pop icon Mariah Carey, was promoted this year to general counsel for MLB Players Inc., the union’s commercial arm. McDonald earned $463,200 last year.

The MLBPA has long been home to some of the most powerful labor lawyers in professional sports. Richard “Dick” Moss, the union’s first general counsel, died at 93 in September. The league itself is led by its commissioner, Robert Manfred Jr., a former labor law partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.

Other top legal billers for the union last year were Jeff Fannell & Associates ($224,400); McCarter & English ($156,000); San Francisco’s Altshuler & Berzon ($147,000); Boston’s Hemenway & Barnes ($143,800); Dominican lawyer Paola Mañón Taveras ($131,000); and Washington’s Groom Law Group ($122,700).