Two ASU law students are creating the first sports and entertainment law journal and clinic for ASU and Arizona.
Professional connections, experience and determination led third-year law students Sam Renaut and Amara Edblad to develop professional opportunities for their fellow students.
Edblad and Renuat said Phoenix has the perfect environment for a sports and entertainment law community because of the proximity to the entertainment industry in California and the sports franchises in Phoenix.
“There’s no reason why ASU shouldn’t be the No. 1 place for sports and entertainment law,” Renaut said.
The Saturday law conference starts at 9 a.m. in Armstrong Hall on the Tempe campus and will feature professional contributors to the law journal.
There will be breakout question-and-answer sessions with the lawyers about sports and entertainment law.
ASU students will contribute
articles for the following issues of the journal.
The journal provides an opportunity for sports and entertainment law students to get published and work with professionals.
The clinic also gives students opportunities that weren’t previously available — working on real sports and entertainment cases, the founders said.
“That’s why I came [West] because there wasn’t anything like this,” Renaut said. “I saw an opportunity and I figured I would come out here and build my own program if there’s not going to be one here for me.”
Renaut applied to law school at ASU after graduating from Virginia Tech with a bachelor’s degree.
The first edition of the journal will be published in spring 2011 and 11 lawyers from across the country are contributing articles, the founders said.
Six to eight articles will be picked for the first journal edition and each one will include a short complimentary or opposing argument to the article by ASU students.
The journal provides the opportunity for law students to publish peer-reviewed articles that fulfill their senior writing requirements, Renaut and Edblad said.
Some students work much harder on articles they are submitting for publication than they would on a class assignment, said David Palanzo, a third-year law student.
He said he’s already written double the page requirements for class.
“For a journal, you are trying to do the best work possible, and you are getting a ton of experience,” Palanzo said.
The research for the journal is based on court cases and databases available on the Internet. They do not conduct their own studies.
Along with the development of the new journal, a new clinic is scheduled to start next fall and will probably be run out of two different attorneys’ offices, the founders said.
An entertainment clinic will be run out of entertainment attorney Connie Mableson’s offices, of Mableson Law Group, they said. The sports clinic will be run out of the offices of Snell and Wilmer, a large law firm with several offices. Both offices are in Phoenix.
Edblad and Renaut are also the co-presidents of Sports and Entertainment Law Students Association, an ASU club.
This organization has been in existence for at least 15 years on the ASU campus, Edblad said. They got involved three years ago, she said. It will provide new leadership for the journal and clinic.
Because of Edblad and Renaut’s involvement in developing new opportunities for sports and entertainment law students, the association has grown from 10 active members to 64 since the beginning of the fall semester.
They said they feel confident the journal and clinic will continue after they graduate in May because of the enthusiasm of some of the first- and second-year law students involved in SELSA.
“I think we have definitely cultivated several contenders for taking over,” Edblad said.
Reach the reporter at mary.shinn@asu.edu
