Tagliabue Is Praised by Colleagues in Legal Profession

There are few people more familiar with the problems of the National Football League than Paul Tagliabue. It has been his rather difficult job to defend the league against the glut of lawsuits that contributed to Pete Rozelle’s retirement.

Tagliabue was the loser in the suit brought by the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission against the NFL for antitrust violations. The jury awarded the commission about $20 million in damages for the league’s violations of antitrust laws. The suit cost the NFL $10 million in legal fees.

Technically, he was the loser in the suit brought by the United States Football League against the NFL. However, the USFL asked for $1.6 billion but was awarded only $3 in damages. That defense cost the NFL $26 million in legal fees and greatly enhanced Tagliabue’s reputation among the league’s owners.

And he was the loser in the Raiders’ antitrust suit against the NFL for trying to stop the team’s move to Los Angeles from Oakland. The NFL had to pay $20 million in damages.

Tagliabue joined the powerful Washington law firm of Covington & Burling in 1969. After being made a partner, he almost exclusively handled the league’s Washington affairs.

Despite the losses, Tagliabue’s reputation as an excellent antitrust lawyer has remained intact.

The announcement of his selection as NFL commissioner was met with equal enthusiasm by his courtroom opponents and supporters.

“He’s a fine gentleman and a scholarly lawyer, and unlike his predecessor he may pay some attention to antitrust laws,” said Max Blecher, an attorney who represented the Coliseum Commission against the NFL. “He’ll keep them on the straight and narrow, I hope. They need it.”

Harry Pregerson, formerly a U.S. district judge now at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, also had positive recollections of Tagliabue during the Coliseum trial.

“He’s an outstanding lawyer and certainly has a complete understanding of how the league functions, knows all the owners and I’m sure many of the players,” Pregerson said, while admitting that he has never seen an NFL game in person or on television. “He made some cogent arguments, and my impressions were always very favorable and straightforward.”

Peter K. Leisure, the U.S. district judge who heard the USFL-NFL trial, was also impressed with Tagliabue.

“He’s a man for all seasons, even though we’re only talking about a fall season,” Leisure said from his office in New York.

“He takes great care in approaching very difficult problems, shows patience and thoroughness and above all has a high intellect. I could not be more pleased to hear that he would be at the helm during difficult times as well as good times for the National Football League and professional sports in the United States.”

Tagliabue is a specialist in antitrust law and the author of “Antitrust Developments in Sports and Entertainment,” which appeared in the Antitrust Law Journal.

Lawrence Sullivan, a professor at the University of California and one of the country’s leading experts on antitrust law, said the choice of Tagliabue is a good one.

“I have general impressions of him as being a very competent, rather balanced type of person and probably a wise choice,” Sullivan said.

Antitrust legislation is at the heart of the NFL problems. The league has long contended that its monopolistic practices are used to increase competition rather than to discourage it. Tagliabue told Fortune magazine: “Any normal business can decide where it wants a plant, but we’re treated like a group of conspirators rather than a meeting of the board.”

This is a view that the courts have not accepted, instead ruling that each team is a separate entity. The NFL has long sought an exemption similar to the one granted major league baseball. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said in 1922 that baseball is a national pastime and exempt from antitrust laws.

Tagliabue also represented the NFL in the suit filed by the National Football League Players Assn. after the 1987 strike. The matter is yet to be decided by a Minneapolis court.

Still, his reputation is not one of being anti-union.

“We don’t have him listed as a union buster,” said Virginia Diamond, an attorney with the AFL-CIO. “We’ve never considered Covington & Burling a union-busting firm.”

Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFLPA, said that he expects good relations with the new commissioner. “I want to congratulate Paul Tagliabue on his selection as NFL commissioner and I look forward to working with him,” Upshaw said in a statement. “I have always found him a straight-forward thinking type of person interested in resolving differences.”