Laying the Legal Smackdown

You never know what surprises might show up in the world of WWE—including, apparently, Super Lawyers. On the July 2, 2018 edition of Monday Night Raw, as former women’s champion Bayley was reluctantly waiting to begin a corporate-mandated friendship counseling session, she could be seen reading the 2018 edition of Southern California Rising Stars magazine featuring Ibiere Seck of the Cochran firm on the cover. Searching for a good employment litigation attorney, perhaps? Let’s hope Bayley and her best friend-turned-rival Sasha Banks can hug it out instead.

This isn’t the first time Super Lawyers and WWE have crossed paths over the past decade.

In the 2008 issue of Pennsylvania Super Lawyers, we profiled WWE chairman Vince McMahon’s go-to attorney, Jerry McDevitt, who began his professional relationship with the larger-than-life promoter in 1987. “You’re either with me or against me,” McMahon told us. McDevitt is “totally in the same boat, whether it sinks or not.”

We caught up with then-WWE general counsels Ed Kaufman and Jared Bartie in Connecticut Super Lawyers and Corporate Counsel Edition, respectively.

In the 2016 issue of Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers, workers’ comp attorney Keith Mark revealed how he came to tag team with “Mr. Wrestlemania” Shawn Michaels to host MacMillan River Adventures on the Outdoor Channel: “I said, ‘My wife and I are huge fans,’ and Shawn said, ‘Are you kidding me? I’m a fan of yours. I watch you every Sunday.’”

And in the new issue of Minnesota Super Lawyers, we got in the ring with current WWE Universal Champion Brock Lesnar’s real-life advocate: David Bradley Olsen. The Henson & Efron attorney—who also famously represented Jesse “the Body” Ventura in the Chris Kyle dispute—has gotten Lesnar “into contracts and out of contracts” since 2000. And, unlike Lesnar’s onscreen adviser, Paul Heyman, Olsen has never enacted a shocking betrayal of his client on a worldwide television broadcast.