By Brian Baxter, From The Am Law Daily

A week after a controversial 243-page investigative report by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison dropped the hammer on the reigning Super Bowl champion New England Patriots for allegedly using underinflated footballs in a key National Football League playoff game earlier this year, the team and its star quarterback have lined up some high-powered counsel to handle a brewing fight off the field.

The Am Law Daily has learned that Morgan, Lewis & Bockius commercial litigation partner Daniel Goldberg in Boston has been advising the Patriots during the probe, spearheaded by Paul Weiss litigation co-chair Theodore Wells Jr. following his firm’s hire by the league in January. Goldberg has handled Patriots-related legal work since 1994, the year his longtime client Robert Kraft purchased the Foxborough, Massachusetts-based NFL franchise for a mere $172 million. Forbes currently values the team and associated real estate assets at $2.6 billion.

Most of Goldberg’s relationship with the Patriots and Kraft stems from when he was a partner at Bingham McCutchen, a firm absorbed into Morgan Lewis earlier this year. While at Bingham McCutchen, Goldberg guided the Patriots through a previous run through the NFL’s disciplinary gauntlet in 2008, when a video assistant employed by the team cut a deal with the league after he was caught illicitly taping an opposing team’s defensive formations. In keeping with the Watergate theme to the NFL’s sporting scandals, the video shenanigans earned the moniker Spygate.

For Deflategate—the name of the controversy bestowed on the Patriots’ use of soft footballs during their 45-7 drubbing of the Indianapolis Colts on Jan. 18—the team’s All-Pro quarterback Tom Brady has turned to a veteran of Bountygate, a probe of New Orleans Saints players accused of being paid bonuses to injure opponents, to fight a four-game suspension handed down by the NFL earlier this week.

Jeffrey Kessler, head of the global antitrust group at Winston & Strawn and co-chair of the firm’s vaunted sports law group, is advising the National Football League Players Association in its role representing Brady on his appeal, along with litigation partner David Greenspan. The two share something in common with Morgan Lewis’ Goldberg in having also both worked at a now-defunct Am Law 100 firm. Kessler and Greenspan led a 60-strong team of Dewey & LeBoeuf litigators to Winston & Strawn three years ago this month.

The additional legal firepower could lead to some big legal bills in subsequent months for both the NFL and its players union. The Am Law Daily reported a year ago this month on the NFLPA’s expenditures on outside lawyers, including $2.7 million to Winston & Strawn, during the nonprofit’s last fiscal year. A filing made by the union with the U.S. Department of Labor last year shows that Kessler also paid $10,025 for tickets to Super Bowl XLVIII in New Jersey. (The NFLPA, which is led by former Latham & Watkins and Patton Boggs litigation partner DeMaurice Smith, will file its next financial statement in late May.)

Paul Weiss has also reaped the benefits of the NFL’s largesse. The league, a registered nonprofit industry association, paid almost $7.4 million to the firm during the 12-month period between April 1, 2013, and March 31, 2014, according to a report by The Am Law Daily in February citing federal tax filings. Paul Weiss, which through Wells conducted another investigation last year into a bullying incident involving the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, has been representing the league in litigation with former players suffering from traumatic head injuries. A federal judge approved in late April a settlement with players that could see the league’s total costs in that litigation hit $1 billion. (An appeal of that accord was filed Wednesday.)

A Paul Weiss spokeswoman declined a request to disclose what the firm has been paid for its Deflategate report, one that sibling publication The National Law Journal suggested this week could inspire law students. Another investigation led by Wells two years ago into the business practices of the National Basketball Players Association and its former leader saw the firm reap $3.6 million for its efforts.

The Deflategate report has raised key questions into the quality of its underlying data, as well as criticism from Brady’s personal lawyer and agent, Donald Yee of Los Angeles-based Yee & Dubin Sports, calling the findings a “sad day for the league” and accusing Wells and Paul Weiss of being conflicted through their other work for the NFL. (In a conference call Wednesday, Wells defended the integrity of his report.)

Yee has publicly discussed why his client declined to provide text messages and emails to Wells’ team. Brady reportedly did not seek the NFLPA’s assistance during the Paul Weiss probe, which uncovered some embarrassing correspondence among Patriots employees. Besides Brady’s suspension, the report led the NFL to slap the Patriots with a $1 million fine and dock the team two future draft picks.

As for the NFL, it remains unclear who will take the lead for the New York-based league as it presumably prepares to defend Paul Weiss’ findings against the scrutiny of Kessler, who has a long track record in taking on league management. The most likely candidate is Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld partner Daniel Nash in Washington, D.C., who usually handles the NFL’s labor and employment disputes. The league paid $4.6 million to Akin Gump during its last fiscal year. (Nash did not respond to a request for comment.)

Covington & Burling, another longtime NFL legal adviser, could also play a role in any Deflategate-related litigation. The firm, which was paid nearly $8.1 million by the league office last year, is counseling the NFL in a $1 billion salary cap collusion case filed by the NFLPA in 2012 that is close to a resolution after being bounced back to a federal court in Minneapolis by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Paul Tagliabue, a former NFL commissioner now serving as senior of counsel at Covington in Washington, D.C., came back in an advisory role two years ago to vacate Bountygate penalties imposed by the league.

Alas, the days of the NFL’s legal billings being open to the public will soon close. The league announced in late April that it would relinquish its nonprofit status, but not before submitting one final federal tax filing detailing its finances over the past year.

IMAGE: Tom Brady Photo: Keith Allison via Wikimedia Commons

For more on this story go to: http://www.americanlawyer.com/id=1202726380035/Morgan-Lewis-Winston–Strawn-Enter-NFLs-Deflategate-Drama#ixzz3a7CNDve2

Related story:

NFL suspends Brady four games, hits Patriots hard for Deflategate

From the Daily Herald

NEW ENGLAND–The National Football League came down hard on the New England Patriots on Monday for their role in Deflategate, suspending star quarterback Tom Brady for the first four games of next season and fining the franchise $1 million.

The NFL also said the Patriots will forfeit their first-round selection in the 2016 draft and a fourth-round pick in 2017 for using under-inflated footballs in last season’s AFC Championship game.

Brady’s agent and Patriots owner Robert Kraft both sharply criticized the punishment, prolonging a turbulent season for the most-profitable U.S. sports league, which has already had to deal with scandals involving domestic violence and child abuse. “The discipline is ridiculous and has no legitimate basis,” said Brady’s agent Don Yee, adding that the quarterback will appeal the suspension.

Ted Wells, an attorney hired by the NFL to investigate the allegations, said in a 243-page report that it was “more probable than not” that Patriots personnel “were involved in a deliberate effort” to circumvent rules by using deflated footballs in the team’s 45-7 win over the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC championship game. An underinflated football would likely give Brady a better grip and allow him to throw longer and with more accuracy, especially in the chilly and wet conditions the Colts and Patriots played in to determine who would go to the Super Bowl.

The $1 million fine ties the largest ever for a team in the NFL, equaling the amount the league ordered San Francisco 49ers owner Edward Debartolo, Jr. to pay in 1999 after he pleaded guilty to a felony for his role in a Louisiana gambling scandal.

In a statement, Kraft, considered one of the league’s most-powerful owners and an ally of Commissioner Roger Goodell, expressed his “disappointment in how this one-sided investigation was handled” and said Brady, who has led the Patriots to four championships, “has our unconditional support.”

“Despite our conviction that there was no tampering with footballs, it was our intention to accept any discipline levied by the league,” Kraft said in a statement. “Today’s punishment, however, far exceeded any reasonable expectation. It was based completely on circumstantial rather than hard or conclusive evidence.”

Brady has a guaranteed base salary of $8 million for the 16-game 2015 NFL season. If the four-game suspension with no pay is upheld, Brady will miss games against Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Jacksonville and Dallas. Ironically, his first game back on Oct. 18 would be against the Colts.

Vincent, the NFL’s vice president of football operations who handed down the sanctions, said he was influenced by the Patriots’ 2007 Spygate scandal and the lack of cooperation by Brady and the Patriots. “We relied on the critical importance of protecting the integrity of the game and the thoroughness and independence of the Wells report,” Goodell said in a statement.

For more on this story go to: http://www.thedailyherald.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55460:nfl-suspends-brady-four-games-hits-patriots-hard-for-deflategate&catid=11:international-sports&Itemid=22