Andrew Lee Ensures the New York Jets Fly High as Chief Legal Officer

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It’s a bit of a paradox. Andrew Lee says if you’re interviewing for a role with a professional sports organization, leading with your fandom is typically not a great place to start. The chief legal officer and award-winning attorney for the New York Jets wasn’t raised as a Jets fan; he grew up in the DC area. He didn’t even intend to get into sports law; he expected to spend his career working on high-level music and copyright matters. But that’s the other significant takeaway from Lee’s journey. If you’re open to new possibilities, you’ll be amazed at where you wind up. More importantly, you might be shocked at what kind of job truly fulfills you.

At this moment, Lee is a veteran of pro football, Super Bowl, and Olympic lobbying and host preparation, blockchain innovation, litigation, complex transactions, and employment law. In high school, he was just a guy who could talk himself and his friends out of trouble.

“My dean of students predicted that I would make a good lawyer someday,” the CLO says, laughing. “I guess you could say I had a knack for advocating on behalf of myself and others.”

It was music, not sports, that drove Lee’s law school ambitions. The lawyer is a lifelong musician; he seems to always have a guitar at hand for those moments when he needs to clear his head. Lee was at Fordham Law in the mid-nineties and blended a fascination with cutting-edge technology with his love of music. He coded a law journal website and imagined a career as a copyright lawyer, dealing with the upstarts like Napster and the soon-to-be complicated world of MP3 sharing.

Lee’s leap into sports law was a turn of fate in his early years of law firm practice. His first interaction came via an assignment: a lease dispute between the Jets and New Jersey Exposition Authority over the amount of rent the Jets paid at the old Giants Stadium, a high-stakes grind that eventually drew Lee deeply into the franchise’s inner workings. Soon, he was seconded to the Jets, helping shape the West Side Stadium project in Manhattan. It was supposed to be a six-month stint, but his legal acumen, business sense, and ability to handle everything from depositions to business agreements made Lee an ideal fit for the organization.

He became the team’s General Counsel just as the Jets’ ambitions took flight. MetLife Stadium, a joint venture between the Jets and Giants, was launched during his tenure. Lee did more than legal paperwork: he conducted an HR audit, hired the first HR director, worked on the establishment of the new HQ and training facility known as the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center, and orchestrated a complex corporate relocation from Manhattan and Long Island to New Jersey. Relocations are common in business, but not through New York City with two bridges, millions of people, and the quirks of pro football infrastructure to boot.

“Andy has an extraordinary range—seamlessly navigating legal operations, business strategy, and complex transactions with impeccable judgment,” says Beth McGinn a partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. “His quick wit, sharp insight, and tireless dedication set a high bar for excellence in sports law.”

Lee was also a pivotal member of formulating and executing the bid that brought Super Bowl XLVIII to MetLife Stadium and organizing suite license agreements and early sponsorship contracts. His efforts led to a role as General Counsel for the NY/NJ Super Bowl Host Committee, a position based in Manhattan and MetLife Stadium, and one that soon overlapped with the launch of his own law firm.

Having left the Jets for the dual roles, Lee built out a wild resume of work. He was both outside counsel and trusted confidant for sports teams, communications agencies, entertainment firms, and Olympic organizations. His legal expertise ranged from high-stakes crisis management to employment law, business formation, and outside general counsel for US Rowing.

The luster of running his own shop eventually wore off, so Lee made yet another fascinating pivot: he joined the Sport & Entertainment Group at Foley & Lardner and became a founder of the firm’s DAWN (Digital Asset, Web3, and NFTs) practice group, pioneering legal thinking and business models for NFT platforms, blockchain startups, and Web3 entrepreneurs.

“There was just a natural crossover in the sports and entertainment world, so I dug in deep and really enjoyed the work,” Lee explains. “I even came up with the name for the practice group.”

Around the same time, the Jets were looking for a new General Counsel. It had been fifteen years since Lee had been at the helm as GC, but everyone still remembered his career at the organization and many knew him from his continuing work as outside counsel for the club. He began coming to the office, again on loan, once a week. Then he was coming back full-time.

A lot has changed in the sports industry since Lee’s first go-around. Data privacy and data protection are now far more than “burgeoning considerations,” they’re priorities. Then there’s AI and its implications on IP ownership. And then there is the stark difference in the NFL’s embrace of sports betting since the US. Supreme Court struck down a federal ban several years ago.

“I remember when having a racetrack next to our stadium was a source of concern,” Lee says. “Now, sports betting it is a massive part of the sports world. I’ve had to learn a lot, but that’s also what keeps the job interesting. It’s always something new.”

And his fandom? Lee says that what made him fall in love with the Jets was the people and organization he got to know from the inside. If you’re right for a team, Lee says, the fandom will inevitably follow. If you’re an attorney bent on working on behalf of your favorite team, your fandom should just be a bonus. What your organization needs is a great attorney who can handle a wide variety of work, work well across departments, and be very good at what they do.

“I didn’t wind up doing what I expected, so I hope people will be open to new possibilities,” Lee says. “Just be open to an experience and run with it.”

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