Michele Roberts is the first female executive director of the National Basketball Players Association. She has a background as a public defender and trial lawyer. Roberts traded her career in private practice to become the union chief for the NBA players. As the union director, she negotiates collective bargaining agreements with the NBA and advocates for the interests of over 400 professional basketball players. Roberts draws on her litigation skills to effectively represent the players and navigate interactions with various stakeholders in the NBA.

1. SPOTLIGHTING BY LYDIA LUM
A Courtside Ally
Career Trial Lawyer is Changing the Face of Men’s Basketball
AS A PUBLIC DEFENDER, Michele Roberts fought for clients who might
have been convicted and sentenced to prison if not for her tenacity. In private
practice, Roberts tackled matters that attracted as many news headlines as
her murder cases did.
AS A PUBLIC DEFENDER, Michele Roberts fought for clients who might
have been convicted and sentenced to prison if not for her tenacity. In private
practice, Roberts tackled matters that attracted as many news headlines as
her murder cases did.
Michele Roberts
traded in her career
as a pre-eminent
litigation partner in
Big Law to become
executive director of
the National Basketball
Players Association.
A childhood fan of
the New York Knicks,
Roberts comprehended
at a young age that
many players’ salaries
improved the lives of
low-income families.
Since 2014, she has been executive director of the New York City-based National Basketball
Players Association, the first female union chief in major American sports. Yet even now,
she is struck by the many stakeholders who watch her every move.
“I was naïve,” Roberts said. “I had no clue how much interest there would
be in the fact that I’m a woman.”
Naïve? Clueless? Does that remotely describe someone who
was recruited for Anita Hill’s legal team during Senate
hearings for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clar-
ence Thomas?
“Michele is the last person I would call
naïve,” said Gary Kohlman, the union’s general
counsel who watched her blossom from an
ambitious student into a formidable
trial lawyer.
Roberts also navigates pub-
lic perceptions that didn’t arise
during her high-profile legal
career in the nation’s capital.
“I don’t want any failure of
mine to haunt a successor,” she
said. “Before coming here, I never
felt the need to be the best for the
sake of the next person—in this
instance, the next woman—who
wants this job. I constantly meet
people who say, ‘We’re rooting for
you. You’re giving our daughters
hope. Our children are counting
on you.’”
The union job is her first in pro
sports, but she sees similarities to
commercial litigation for Fortune®
500 clients. Both rely on skills in
changing people’s minds and in
managing multiple constituencies.
While practicing law, she commu-
nicated with company sharehold-
10 DIVERSITY & THE BAR NOV.DEC 2016 MCCA.COM

2. ers, senior corporate executives,
federal agency officials and other
litigators. At the union, she deals
with the league, agents, fans, the
news media and 400-plus male
basketball players.
Just as she used to speak re-
spectfully to jurors—mindful not
to talk down to them—she does the
same nowadays with players.
Path to Law
Roberts’ single-parent mother
raised five children in New York
public housing. The boys con-
trolled the family TV, and Knicks
basketball games were favorites.
Roberts fell in love. She learned
that many players came from
neighborhoods like hers and that
their salaries helped lift their fami-
lies out of poverty.
A teenage Roberts won a schol-
arship to a boarding school where
African-American students were
few, her first time in an over-
whelmingly white environment.
Before leaving home, she
shared a hobby with her mother.
Lacking cash for movies or recre-
ation, the mother frequented the
Bronx Supreme Court to watch
the proceedings. The girl tagged
along starting at age 10. When her
mother explained that poor people
received free legal help from
public defenders, the girl found the
career appealing.
While earning a JD at the
University of California, Berkeley,
in the late 1970s, she defended San
Quentin State Prison inmates in
disciplinary hearings that often
resulted in reinstatement of privi-
leges such as conjugal visits.
Kohlman, meanwhile, visited
Berkeley to recruit for the Public
Defender Service for the District
of Columbia, where he was trial
division chief. After interviewing
Roberts, he urged his bosses to
meet her.
“Michele had empathy for
people,” Kohlman said. “Her sense
of being in command gave her
the ability to connect well with
juries. How she expressed and
conducted herself had an element
of mystery, an enigmatic quality. I
could see all this translating well in
a courtroom.”
On a fast break to excellence
Upon joining the public defender’s
office in 1980, Roberts noticed that
opposing counsel assumed she was
incompetent and lacked law firm
job offers. So she became relentless
in trial preparation.
“This misconception about pub-
lic defenders prompted me to prove
my commitment and my talent,”
Roberts said in a 2008 Diversity
& the Bar interview. “I make it my
business to be the best lawyer in
the room; it stems from needing to
prove my excellence when I was
starting out.”
Courtroom successes came, too.
Among them was a case in which
10 people stood trial for the 1984
rape and murder of a 48-year-old
mother of six.
Jurors acquitted only
two defendants—including
Roberts’ client.
After eight years as a public
defender, she left to practice with
colleagues such as Kohlman, ex-
panding into civil and white-collar
criminal litigation.
In 1991, a former colleague
of Roberts sought help. He was
advising Hill, a former government
employee who was set to testify
during Senate confirmation hear-
ings for Thomas. Hill had alleged
that Thomas made unwelcome,
sexually provocative remarks to
her when they worked together.
Roberts spent hours interro-
gating and cross-examining her
in preparation for the all-male,
Senate panel.
Hill didn’t break down during
the nationally televised hearings.
Thomas, who denied her allega-
tions, ascended to the Supreme
Court, but Hill’s graphic testi-
mony ignited broader public
At the union, she deals with the league, agents, fans, the news
media and 400-plus male basketball players.
MCCA.COM NOV.DEC 2016 DIVERSITY & THE BAR 11

3. awareness of sexual harassment
in workplaces.
By the early 2000s, Roberts
moved to big law firms and in
2008, was recognized on MCCA’s
annual Rainmakers List. Still, she
did more than serve clients.
When Lisa Gilford joined the
Los Angeles office of Skadden,
Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
in 2013 as a litigation partner, she
knew of Roberts only by reputa-
tion, which included having tried
100-plus cases to jury verdict in
federal and state courts before
joining Skadden’s Washington, D.C.
office two years earlier.
Roberts bridged 2,300 miles
between them by hosting Gilford
for dinner and introducing her to
African-American associates in the
DC office.
A sponsor and mentor to
Skadden’s junior lawyers, espe-
cially women and minorities,
Roberts “understood we needed
to form a community, and she
went out of her way to make it
happen,” Gilford said, calling her
down-to-earth demeanor a rarity
among superstars.
Her wit was apparent when
“she introduced herself to a group
of associates by noting that she
used to be poor, became rich, and
rich is better,” Gilford said. “Mi-
chele’s upbringing informed her
ability to walk into any room and
relate to others.”
Gravitating Toward
Basketball Labor Force
Roberts regularly attended
Washington Wizards games,
dating to when the team sported a
different name.
But players for the Wizards,
her hometown Knicks and the
PHOTOSCOURTESYOFNATIONALBASKETBALLPLAYERSASSOCIATION
Since becoming executive director of the National Basketball Players Association in 2014, Michele Roberts has
worked to mend relations between the union and its members. Consequently, she talks often with union president
Chris Paul, who’s in his 12th
season playing pro basketball.
12 DIVERSITY & THE BAR NOV.DEC 2016 MCCA.COM

4. league’s 28 other teams endured a
five-month lockout in 2011 because
negotiations between their union
and the league collapsed during
collective bargaining. Roberts grew
further dismayed in 2013 when Bil-
ly Hunter, then-executive director
of the union, was fired by players
after an investigation revealed
Hunter made questionable financial
decisions using union funds. She
began researching union operations
and contacted the search firm sift-
ing through 300 job candidates.
In a vote of union leaders the
following year, Roberts defeated
two other finalists—both men—by
winning players over with her per-
sonal and professional narratives.
In recent months, she has
been negotiating a new collective
bargaining agreement with league
officials. The current one—its rat-
ification ended the 2011 lockout—
gives players a smaller percentage
of basketball-related income than
what they received before the
lockout. The agreement lasts until
2021, but the league and the union
are each permitted to opt out of
it, meaning another work stop-
page could occur. Long after the
current agreement was brokered,
the league secured a new, national
TV rights deal—reportedly worth
$24 billion over nine years—that
took effect at the start of the 2016-
17 basketball season. Each team’s
player payroll surged from the cash
influx, so it’s no surprise the union
wants a new agreement.
Roberts and league officials have
pledged not to negotiate through
the news media, but Kohlman
illustrated how Roberts protects
and promotes player interests in a
related area:
Before Roberts’ tenure, play-
ers typically received their group
licensing checks—shares from sales
of video games, jerseys and other
official league merchandise—at
meetings convened by union offi-
cials, who kept checks for months
at a time.
Under Roberts, the payments
are distributed immediately to
players, rather than used as moti-
vators to attend meetings focused
on union priorities. Meaning, she
trusts them to show up.
“Michele recognizes them as
grown men,” Kohlman said of
the players. “It’s a palpable trust.
There’s a remarkable connection
she has made, paying such close
attention, it’s as if she hangs onto
their every word.”
He adds, “They made the right
choice hiring her. She knows
combat, is excellent at negotiat-
ing and is always well-prepared
yet realistic.”
Enjoying Today
Roberts doesn’t miss practicing law
and encourages others to consider
intriguing career options.
“You might believe you can
make a move tomorrow, but today
might be the time the opportu-
nity is available,” she said. “Don’t
let fear of the unknown deter or
stop you. There will be things you
cannot learn how to do until you
have made the move. Life is not a
dress rehearsal.”
Her honeymoon at the union
has faded, but her commitment
has not.
“I’m delighted to be here,” Rob-
erts said, “and still pinching myself
that I’m here. I loved being a
public defender because I regarded
clients so highly. I could not have
had a better way to spend my life
as a lawyer. My current situation
is different because clients—the
players—haven’t been accused of
crimes. But I have just as much
respect for who they are. It’s won-
derful knowing these men and that
I am making a difference in their
lives.” ■
LYDIA LUM was honored as national
journalist of the year by the Organization of
Chinese Americans. Now a freelance writer
and editor, Lum (lydialum999@yahoo.com)
is a former reporter for the Houston Chronicle
and Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
"They made the right choice in hiring her. She knows combat, is
excellent at negotiating and is always well-prepared yet realistic."
—Gary Kohlman
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