April 05, 2011
Tulane's Gabe Feldman an unlikely voice in NFL labor dispute
Published: Sunday, April 03, 2011, 7:45 AM
By
James Varney, The Times-Picayune
NOLA.com
Ted Jackson/The Times-Picayune
Tulane sports law professor Gabe Feldman has become the go-to guy for many trying to understand the ongoing NFL labor problems.
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When Gabe Feldman made the decision to quit the lucrative rat race in our nation's capital and decamp for Tulane University, all the stars seemed to have aligned in his favor.
The talented lawyer had come to the realization his true love was teaching, not litigation, and Tulane's law school had offered him not only a chance to pursue his passion, but to do so in his dream niche: sports law. So Feldman swerved off the path to partnership that awaited him in perhaps Washington's premier law firm.
The move shocked some.
"Gabe had told me he liked teaching, but when he came to me and said I might be getting a call from Tulane, I said, 'You don't want to do this!' " recalled Mark Levinstein, a distinguished partner at Williams & Connolly with experience in sports law, who had served as a mentor of sorts to Feldman. "Everybody liked him. Clients loved him. I'm thinking, 'How much money do you want to have? How are you going to take care of your kids?'"
Feldman said the opinion flattered him, but he never hesitated. New Orleans was where he wanted to be, and thus, single and bursting with vigor and ideas, he got an apartment in the Warehouse District and picked up the chalk Uptown.
It was the first week of August 2005.
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