Marquette Sports Law Review Volume 18 Article 7 Issue 1 Fall Disbarring Jerry Maguire: How Broadly Defining "Unauthorized Practice of Law" Could Take the "Lawyer" Out of "Lawyer-Agent" Despite the Current State of Athlete Agent Legislation Jeremy J. Geisel Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/sportslaw Part of the Entertainment and Sports Law Commons Repository Citation Jeremy J. Geisel, Disbarring Jerry Maguire: How Broadly Defining "Unauthorized Practice of Law" Could Take the "Lawyer" Out of "Lawyer- Agent" Despite the Current State of Athlete Agent Legislation, 18 Marq. Sports L. Rev. 225 (2007) Available at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/sportslaw/vol18/iss1/7 This Comment is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. COMMENT DISBARRING JERRY MAGUIRE: HOW BROADLY DEFINING "UNAUTHORIZED PRACTICE OF LAW" COULD TAKE THE "LAWYER" OUT OF "LAWYER-AGENT" DESPITE THE CURRENT STATE OF ATHLETE AGENT LEGISLATION I. INTRODUCTION In 1995, moviegoers watched as fictional agent Jerry Maguire waltzed out of his plush window office at Sports Management International to represent athletes independently. 1 However, from the time Jerry Maguire was representing "The Great Rod Tidwell ' 2 until now, the agent industry has become one of enormous change. Industry giants such as IMG, Octagon, and SFX, among others, once unfamiliar to the sports world, have used their purchasing power to buy the businesses of boutique agencies, 3 building an arsenal of athletes and leverage that has made it difficult for smaller firms to compete.4 At the same time, agents have begun to specialize, usually 5 representing players in only one sport and often players at only one position.