Page 10 - Katten Annual Diversity Review

Recruitment | Advancement | Retention Alumni Spotlight: David Kelly, General
Counsel of the Golden State Warriors
David Kelly believes that he is proof of what happens when law firm leaders
reach out to, collaborate with and empower young, diverse attorneys.
Previously a Corporate partner who joined
Katten in Chicago out of law school, David
now works for one of his Katten clients, the
Golden State Warriors, as general counsel and vice
president of basketball management and strategy for
the team. He points to several key people at Katten
who helped shape his career and encouraged him to
follow his passions, which David originally thought
centered on entertainment law but took a turn
towards sports while working closely with Adam
Klein, head of Katten’s Sports and Sports Facilities
group, representing clients such as the Chicago
Bulls, Chicago White Sox and the Oakland A’s.
David shares his views on his time at Katten, career
advancement, diversity in the legal profession and
work-life balance in the alumni spotlight below.
What are your main areas of
responsibility as GC of the Warriors?
I wear three different hats as the GC. The first one is law school in 2004.
on the basketball side—managing the salary cap for
he team, negotiating player contracts, liaising with
players’ counsel and strategic planning for the team.
The second area relates to the team’s new 18,500-seat
arena that we’re building in the Mission Bay section
of San Francisco. We broke ground in January and
it’s slated to be open for the 2019-2020 season. For
the new stadium, I’ve worked on a variety of projects
based on each development stage, including negotiating
the land purchase, managing the land entitlement
process, working with the Katten team on the $1 billion He and I struck up a friendship after he stopped by
financing, negotiating construction documents with
our contractor and labor agreements with unions,
and managing litigation matters challenging the
8 Katten Annual Diversity Review – 2017
entitlements. Given the new stadium’s location across
the street from the UCSF Medical Center, I also worked
closely with hospital administration to ensure access
for doctors and patients when we’re having games and
events. The third main component of my job centers
around typical general counsel responsibilities covering
employment law issues, strategic planning, management
of the legal department, and negotiation of sponsorship
and vendor agreements and IP rights deals.
What brought you to Katten and
eventually led you to the Warriors?
As a Chicago native, I knew that Katten had deep roots
in Chicago and that the firm had a strong reputation.
In addition, it had an entertainment practice, which
interested me—particularly the music industry. Even
though the entertainment work was mainly done in
the LA office, there was still an opportunity to branch
out into that area of law within the firm, so all of these
factors led me to join Katten’s Corporate group out of
Adam Klein was my mentor and I worked with him on
various transactions for sports clients. As Adam grew
his practice to include additional clients such as the
Chicago Fire, the St. Louis Blues, the Boston Celtics,
Comcast Spectacor and Time Warner, I was able to
expand the scope of my work as well. Early on I also
worked with Jerry Penner, Adam’s mentor and a very
well-respected attorney within the firm who had the
main relationships with the Bulls and the White Sox.
my office one day and we got to talking about music,
religion and all sorts of things. Jerry made a point
of connecting with diverse attorneys throughout