Attorneys across Indianapolis go toe-to-toe on basketball court

On any given Wednesday, attorneys work to the rhythm of shuffling papers, keyboard clicks and coffee brewing. Conversation is cordial, sometimes adversarial, but moves toward one goal — a resolution.

Once the sun begins its rapid descent to the west, many will head home after a long day’s work.

But some attorneys in the Indianapolis area have one more task to complete before calling it a day. This one, however, doesn’t go toward billable hours.

From December through March, the attorneys trade dress shoes for sneakers and make their way to a local recreational center to argue their case at a different kind of court — on a basketball court.

This season’s participants are part of a more than 40-year legacy that is the Lawyer League, a recreational basketball league in Indianapolis that’s been offering area attorneys the opportunity to champion community and challenge colleagues.

Conversation on the court doesn’t center around briefs and caseloads. Rather, teams display their litigation strategies to the beat of a basketball.

Still, there’s no avoiding the reason why they’re spending their Wednesdays together in the winter. From gaming law to personal injury, real estate to M&A, attorneys on the league’s teams fall in sync on the hardwood, making the Indianapolis legal community tight-knit with every hoop shot and buzzer beat.

“It feels like the most Indiana way to network,” said Dakota Slaughter, a member of the Lawyer League and associate at Bose McKinney & Evans LLP.

The league’s beginnings stem from efforts by several attorneys to gather outside of the office. At the time, teams met at a local elementary school to play informally, said Lee Christie, partner at Christie Bell & Marshall and an early member of the league.

The attorneys later decided to make the games more formal, bringing in referees and keeping score of wins and losses. Eventually, the games were moved to the Indianapolis Basketball Academy.

At its height, around 20 teams were part of the league, with larger law firms sponsoring more than one team during the season.

But around the mid-2010s, the league lost steam, only to be picked up again by Christie and a few others.

“I think that the main motivation was just being able to go out and compete and get exercise and meet other lawyers outside of the courtroom and the litigation and the practice of law. Just meet them on a different arena,” Christie said of why he decided to revive the league.

After the pandemic caused teams to miss the 2020-2021 season, the league has been going strong since.

While not as high in volume as previous seasons, each year boasts around eight to 10 teams competing in single games, with multi-week playoffs at the end of the season.

Nine teams competed this season, which started in early December and ended mid-March. While not intentional, the league often runs alongside the college basketball season.

Fostering community

Some teams who compete in the league come from the same law firm, but that isn’t a requirement to play. In fact, the only real requirement is that players be attorneys or be a close friend or family member of one.

Many teams are made up of a hodgepodge of attorneys across the Indianapolis area, with law firms sponsoring the teams to cover the fees required to play at the recreational center. A team of law students from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law typically competes each season, but the league covers their fees so the students don’t have to pay.

Christie said it’s not only generous of the teams to support the law students in this way but playing in the league also allows the students to connect with practicing attorneys before taking the bar exam.

“Several of the McKinney law students we’ve ended up interviewing for law clerk positions,” Christie said.

Individual teams bring different levels of experience to the league, affording some a leg up in the competition.

The team at Bose McKinney & Evans LLP, known on the court as “Bose Means Buckets,” has a few former college basketball players on the roster, including Slaughter, an associate in Bose McKinney’s litigation group. Slaughter played basketball at the University of Alabama when he was in college.

The Bose team has won two out of the last three seasons.

While competitive in nature, attorneys have emphasized how crucial the league is to get to know both the attorneys you play with and against.

You can often tell what kind of attorney someone is based on how they are on the court, Slaughter said.

“If somebody is a really tough competitor, or hard-nosed or whatever, I would expect that out of them in their legal practice, too,” he said.

Some attorneys are on opposite sides of the basketball court and the legal bench, offering these professionals a unique way of getting to know their opposing counsel when a case arises.

Philip Zimmerly, a partner in Bose McKinney’s labor and employment litigation groups and member of the basketball team, befriended an attorney he later litigated against.

When it came to finding a resolution, the league worked in both sides’ favor.

“We were able to find a pathway towards resolution pretty quickly, in part because of the relationship and trust we had built with each other in the basketball arena,” Zimmerly said.

The league also allows attorneys to build relationships within their own firms.

For Kevin Bennet, an attorney at Scopelitis, the job’s requirements can make connections hit or miss. Scopelitis has attorneys across the country, so Bennett appreciates what the league brings for those at the Indianapolis office.

“It is nice to have your consistent group of people at your home base that you can kind of get to know better,” he said. “It is a good team-building exercise, without even thinking of it as a team-building exercise, because all of us play basketball pretty consistently, so it’s just kind of a fun run for us to all do together.”

Looking ahead, attorneys in the league said they want to see it keep growing, adding more teams to encourage camaraderie in the city. Whether you’re a five-star recruit or a benchwarmer, players are looking for legal professionals from all over the city to join next season.

Some even look forward to the day when area judges lace up their shoes and hit the court.•