Sports and entertainment attorney Nic Mayne teaches a new sneaker law course at Lewis & Clark Law School.
His new course, Contract Drafting: Sneaker Law, provides hands-on contract drafting experience through the lens of the sneaker industry, covering areas of law including entity formation, employment, intellectual property, licensing and influencer collaborations and litigation.
In the first week of the course, students look at the history of the sector and the process of setting up an official business entity, drafting documents of incorporation.
To put the process into perspective, the class evaluates the articles of incorporation for companies such as Nike, which began as Blue Ribbon Sports many decades back, digging through records from the Oregon Secretary of State.
Bahar Tarighi, J.D. ’26, who plans to practice transactional law, said in high school she spent most of her time researching streetwear and sneakers, so this course brought back a lot of memories.
“Oftentimes, it’s easy to get lost in the books and not realize that what we do in law school has real-world implications,” she said. “By taking a course where I have to take the lead and find resources, write contracts clauses, evaluate contracts and watch contract law play out in real time, I’ll have a foundation to build off of in my first few years out of law school.”
The law school’s proximity to downtown Portland, Oregon, offers easy access to industry experts.
Throughout the semester, Mayne brings in guest speakers from relevant and influential companies to share their on-the-ground experience in the sneaker industry. These companies include Nike, Fanatics, Miller Nash and the talent agency Night Media.
Mayne, who earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School, is a transactional lawyer who works in the entertainment and sports industries. He said the most useful law school class he took was a contract drafting seminar that was specific to sports contracts.
“This was a difficult class that mirrored real transactional practice, going further than concepts and ideas around contracts,” he said.
Mayne began teaching contract law at Lewis & Clark in 2023, drawing from his active and extensive corporate experience, including serving as lead counsel on multimillion-dollar deals in entertainment, sports and influence-focused businesses.
In recent years, he has been named an Oregon “Rising Star” by legal resource Super Lawyers as well as a “One to Watch” by the peer-reviewed publication Best Lawyers.
The 2020 release of Sneaker Law: All You Need to Know About the Sneaker Business, a textbook from Kenneth Anand and Jared Goldstein, was a moment of inspiration for Mayne.
In his practice, he has found that clients increasingly expect lawyers to be able to apply their skills to specific industries.
