Prof. Jodi S. Balsam

Jodi S. Balsam is Professor of Clinical Law and Director of Externship Programs at Brooklyn Law School. She designs the curriculum and oversees the faculty to support the 400 students enrolled each year in civil practice, criminal practice, and judicial externships. She joined BLS from New York Law School, where she taught Legal Practice, Sports Law, and the Judicial Externship Seminar. She previously taught in the Lawyering Program at NYU School of Law.

Professor Balsam is a recognized authority on sports law and teaches the Sports Law course at both BLS and NYU School of Law. She writes and speaks on sports law topics, including as co-author of Weiler Roberts’ Sports and the Law, the leading law school casebook in the field. She is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport and the international sports law blog LawInSport. She is a past-chair and current executive committee member of the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Law and Sports. In 2019, the National Collegiate Athletic Association named Professor Balsam to the inaugural NCAA Independent Resolution Panel, which hears complex infractions cases that implicate college athletics’ core values.

Before joining academia, Professor Balsam was the National Football League's Counsel for Operations and Litigation, where she managed litigation in all areas of law, oversaw a variety of policy and operational matters, negotiated and drafted contracts for League special events including the Super Bowl, and administered the League's internal dispute resolution processes and compliance program. Previously she was a litigation attorney with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, representing primarily sports and entertainment clients in antitrust matters and complex commercial litigation. She served as a law clerk for Judge Dennis Jacobs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Judge Charles Brieant of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She also served as Counsel to the Clerk of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and spearheaded the court’s project to comprehensively revise its local rules and internal operating procedures. She currently sits on the Court’s Attorney Advisory Committee on Local Rules.