When Raquel Braun (L’10) was choosing law schools more than a decade ago, she had to decide between Georgetown Law and a school that was advertising her chief interest, sports law. She opted to go to Georgetown and build what she wanted. At the time, Georgetown University had already launched a Georgetown Entertainment & Media Alliance. So thanks to the hard work of Braun and other students in the Classes of 2009 and 2010, a law division — known as GEMALaw — was quickly born.

“[GEMALaw exists] because Raquel decided it was going to be founded…” said Daniel Navarro (L’09), speaking at the Tenth Annual GEMALaw Sports and Entertainment Law Symposium in Hart Auditorium on February 3. “We happened to be along for the ride.”

The day-long symposium kicked off with a conversation with those GEMALaw founders: Braun, now the director of business and legal affairs at Fox Sports/Fox Cable Networks; Navarro, associate counsel at the National Basketball Association and Claire Magee (L’09), corporate counsel at Raycom Media. Founder Daniel Werly (L’09), managing editor of The WhiteBronco.com, moderated the introductory panel.

Though the job outlook had taken a sharp dive when these former students graduated, all were determined to turn things to their advantage. Magee, whose law firm offer was deferred for a year due to the poor economy, took a relatively low paying job in television and ended up becoming an assistant general counsel in one year. She never went back to the firm.

Similarly, Braun saw the economic downturn as an opportunity to follow her dream of working in sports. She took a calculated gamble to do contract work for Fox Sports in Los Angeles and worked as hard as she could. “Those risks really do pay off,” she said.

That’s Entertainment

Other symposium panels looked at dealmaking in Hollywood, legal challenges for technology platforms, and a conversation with the general counsel of major sports franchisers. (For a full list of panelists and speakers, click here.)

Participants got a treat when Darrell D. Miller (L’90), a former member of Georgetown Law’s Gilbert & Sullivan Society, burst into a rousing rendition of the “Nessa Dorma” opera onstage in Hart Auditorium. Miller, now the chair of the Entertainment Department at Fox Rothschild, received GEMALaw’s annual Alumni Achievement Award.

GEMALaw co-presidents Annick Banoun (L’17) and Marissa Moshell (C’14, L’17), who introduced the event along with Dean William M. Treanor, called the participating alumni “the dealmakers, the innovators and the game changers.”

Treanor observed that GEMALaw, which now has approximately 300 members and helps drive the Law Center’s curriculum, has perhaps had more influence on the path of the school than other student group. “We’ve had…an extraordinary group of alumni who have gone into the entertainment and sports field, and [GEMALaw] built on that base,” Treanor said. “There’s an ongoing interest among our students in these fields.”