I recently had the opportunity to interview Julia Harter, Legal Coordinator at Excel Sports Management, and 2025 Tulane University School of Law graduate. In doing so, I was fortunate to learn more about what it takes to build a successful career in sports law as a student and a new graduate. Our conversation covered Julia’s background, current position, career interests, and advice for law students about how to succeed in this competitive field.
Julia graduated from law school in May 2025 and immediately secured a job at one of the most prominent sports agencies in the country. For aspiring sports lawyers, her path is a motivating roadmap. She grew up as a football and basketball fan, but sports law was not always the plan. She knew she wanted to go to law school as a middle schooler, but the specific area of law came later. During her undergraduate years at the University at Buffalo, where she double majored in political science and legal studies, her mother suggested she combine her love of sports with her legal ambitions. The timing aligned with the rise of NIL and the House settlement, making sports law a field with major momentum and opportunity. Julia researched programs with strong sports law offerings and enrolled at Tulane University School of Law, where she graduated with her J.D. and a certificate of specialization in sports law in 2025.
Making Extracurriculars Count
Julia’s advice to law students starts with a simple principle: become involved in a few extracurriculars and fully invest in them. Rather than joining every law school club available, she took on three leadership positions– the Sports Law Society board, the Women in Sports Law Symposium board, and the Tulane Professional Football Negotiation Competition. Each position equipped her with skills and connections that led to her post-graduation success.
Tulane’s Professional Football Negotiation Competition is an experience worth seeking out. Students from law schools across the country conduct mock NFL free agency contract negotiations in front of industry professionals. The competition not only builds legal skills, but also provides students an opportunity to network and connect with sports attorneys. It gave Julia both practical negotiation experience and access to sports law professionals who would later support her career. Now, Julia returns to the Tulane negotiation competitions as a mentor rather than as a competitor.
Julia’s work with Tulane’s Women in Sports Law Symposium board helped foster one of her most impactful professional relationships. She connected with Chelsey Antony, business counsel at the NFL Players Association and a founding member of the Symposium. Antony had also gone in-house directly out of law school, and the shared experience gave them a foundation for genuine mentorship. Today, they stay in touch and sometimes collaborate on substantive work-related matters. For Julia, cultivating lasting, authentic relationships holds far greater value than having a long roster of “cold calls.”
Stacking Internships
Julia built her internship experience around in-house legal work. After her 1L year, Julia pursued a legal internship at a Buffalo industrial manufacturing company, where she began developing the skills that would carry into her later roles. That experience led directly to her 2L summer internship with the LA Clippers, which coincided with the opening of the Intuit Dome in summer 2024.
The Clippers internship gave Julia exposure to complex agreements that come with launching a major venue, including food and beverage vendor contracts, building service agreements, and accessibility compliance documents. Because the Clippers organization also owns the Kia Forum, she worked on entertainment matters as well, including sweepstakes and giveaways for concerts. This mix of sports and entertainment experience reinforced her interest in in-house practice.
During her 3L year, Julia took a non-legal role with the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation, which served as the Super Bowl host committee in 2025. Even without a legal focus, the role gave her more experience in large-scale sporting events at the organizational level.
The Post-Graduation Job Search
Upon graduation, Julia was willing to relocate anywhere for the right opportunity. She applied to numerous positions through job boards like Teamwork Online, Tulane’s career portal, and her personal network. She targeted in-house roles, but remained open to firm experience as a steppingstone.
Excel Sports Management, a full-service sports agency headquartered in New York City, represents major talent across basketball, football, baseball, and golf. When Harter interviewed with the agency, she knew immediately that it was the right fit. The company’s growth trajectory stood out as a reason to join the team early in her career.
Today, as a Legal Coordinator at Excel, Julia manages the contracts database, drafts professional representation agreements when the agency signs new clients, handles compliance relating to athlete-agent registrations across states, and works on sponsorship agreements for Excel events including Super Bowl and NBA All-Star activations.
Behind the Scenes at Excel
Julia is direct about one of the biggest misconceptions students bring to sports law. The job is not always a front-row seat to the action. Most of the work happens away from the game, in contracts and compliance and negotiations. She also refutes the idea that you need to be a sports expert to succeed. An attorney she worked with at the Clippers gave her advice she still carries– “focus on being the best attorney you can be, and everything else follows.”
The part of the job Julia finds the most rewarding is seeing the results of work that started as a contract on her desk. When a sponsorship agreement she drafted appears at an event, and she sees photos of clients enjoying it, or when an athlete she works with gets drafted, signs, or earns an award, she describes the feeling as similar to that of a proud parent. The most meaningful aspect of the job is how her legal work shapes the outcome.
Where Julia is Headed
Julia wants to develop her career at Excel and grow into more involvement on the event sponsorship side of the sports business. She also wants to stay connected to law school communities as a mentor, carrying on the role that professionals like Chelsey Antony played for her.
Her message to students who want to work in sports law is if you stay persistent and build real, genuine relationships, you will find your place. The industry is growing; the money involved is increasing. Emerging areas like NIL, the upcoming MLB collective bargaining agreement, and the rise of women’s sports means there is an abundance of work to be done.
Julia’s experience shows that the path into sports law does not have to look one certain way. The decisions she made, such as being fully involved in a few extracurriculars, pursuing in-house experience, and building genuine connections with professionals in the field, led to achieving her dream role before she is even one full year out of law school. As the sports industry continues to grow, there has never been a better time to pursue a career in it. Julia proves that with the right approach, a successful career in sports is well within reach.