A seasoned leader, legal advisor, and guide with broad experience across a range of business and legal disciplines in U.S. and international matters, Chris McCleary will become president in 2025 of the Sports Lawyers Association, the preeminent organization for the sports lawyer profession.
To learn more about his background and plans for the new role, we sought him out for the following interview.
Question: How did you get your start in sports law/What was your big break?
Answer: In law school I just couldn’t see how I would ever become one of those Cool Sports Lawyers who’d visit once in a while. Then after a bit of big law firm time (where
I frankly was not killing it) I weaseled my way into a junior attorney position at Visa, pitching myself as an advertising & marketing lawyer. Yeah, right! To this day I don’t know why
then Visa USA General Counsel Paul Allen took a chance on me. But once onboard I endlessly chased the Cool Sports Sponsorship people at Visa, trying to be so available and hard working that they couldn’t resist throwing me a bit of work here and there. Over time at Visa my responsibilities changed and morphed but the one thing I just would NOT let go of was our sport work, including Olympics and Paralympics. When a random chance opened up at USOPC, where I could make Team USA my whole day rather than just my favorite part of the day, I grabbed it!
Q: How would you describe your role with the USOPC?
A: I came to the Olympic & Paralympic community to strengthen and head up our legal team, and stayed to lead our “back of house” operations division more broadly – legal, compliance, finance, IT, facilities, events. USOPC is the Team Behind the Team for Team USA, and the Operations Division is the Team Behind the Team Behind the Team. 😊 Most of all I value and feel honored to serve as part of a USOPC leadership team that’s been able to transform our organization and the ways we support Team USA athletes.
Q: How long have you been involved with SLA?
A: I’ve been a fan and conference attendee going back 20 years anyway! Got involved in a bit of committee work and ultimately joined the board in 2020.
Q: What is the best aspects of the SLA?
A: I know this sounds obvious, but it’s the membership. What a group of people to connect with, learn from, help out, have fun with.
There just isn’t anything like it for sports law, anywhere in the world. From the members comes everything else good: Content, thought leader- ship, real impact for people at all stages of their careers. SLA is truly my favorite professional group.
Q: Why did you decide to join the board and pursue the officer track?
A: The more I’ve see of what SLA has done for me and others in our careers, the more mindful I’ve been that it’s got to be a two-way street. My focus in recent years has been more and more on Who’s Next? Who are our next sport lawyers, sport law leaders, role models? Working with and for the SLA board is my chance to help SLA continue to be a great resource for them and continue to make our community stronger, more diverse, and more dynamic.
Q: In what areas do you feel like you can have the most impact with the SLA and why?
A: Without getting into the weeds too much, in the next couple of years I’d love it if we can (i) further sharpen the professional benefits and the fun of SLA membership for an ever larger and more diverse group of people; (ii) feature SLA committees as the places where particularly dynamic and impactful SLA members can find the most engagement and impact for themselves and their colleagues; and (iii) make sure SLA board service, for those members ready and able to make that further commitment of time and energy, allows sport law leaders to truly lead our com- munity to new heights and have the kind of experience that makes it all worthwhile.
