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COLLEGE ATHLETE RIGHTS

Mr. Johnson was plaintiff’s counsel in Oliver v. NCAA, which was the first college athlete lawsuit against the NCAA to ever get to trial, the first to win, and the first to get paid.

The Oliver case began as a legal malpractice case against Oliver’s attorneys, and it involved the legal ethics issue of whether the NCAA could regulate attorneys, among other issues.

The Oliver case provided the impetus for the O’Bannon case and its ongoing progeny.

Mr. Johnson was a primary background source for Taylor Branch’s seminal article, The Shame of College Sports. Joe Nocera, in his book, Indentured, called Mr. Johnson’s Submarining Due Process: How the NCAA Uses its Restitution Rule to Deprive College Athletes of their Right of Access to the Courts … Until Oliver v. NCAA the meanest law review article ever written.

As a college athlete rights advocate and commentator, as well as a leading legal authority on the NCAA, Mr. Johnson is a member of the executive board of the College Sports Research Institute.

Many of Mr. Johnson’s opinion pieces on college sports are published or reprinted on Blog Law Sports.

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