In a sweeping move that has pulled in plenty of attorneys, Major League Baseball on Monday suspended 13 players linked to controversial South Florida anti-aging clinic Biogenesis.

The player hit hardest by MLB's latest attempt to fight the scourge of performance-enhancing drugs, New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez, was suspended through the end of the 2014 season. With Rodriguez set to appeal the 211-game ban, he is the only one among those suspended Monday to not immediately accept his punishment and move on.

Sources familiar with the matter tell The Am Law Daily that Rodriguez has hired Reed Smith commercial litigation cohead Jordan Siev and investment management chair James McCarroll in New York to advise him in arbitration proceedings with MLB.
Siev, who in 2011 helped Wachovia Bank fend off a suit by the trustee for convicted Ponzi schemer Marc Dreier's now-defunct law firm, and McCarroll did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did a Reed Smith spokeswoman.
The suspensions cap months of speculation about what action, if any, MLB would take following the late January publication of a Miami New Times story examining the affairs of Coral Gables–based Biogenesis. The report, which detailed performance-enhancing drug use by certain players, was based on clinic records the alternative weekly obtained from a disgruntled investor and ex-employee, according to a recent report by The New York Times.
The story dealt MLB suffered yet another setback in its ongoing efforts to rid the national pasttime of the illicit drug use critics claim taints the game's record books and disgraces one of America's most popular sports. As one might expect of a standoff between a wealthy league and its well-heeled players, more than a few attorneys have had a hand in the negotiations that led to Monday's announcement.
Pittsburgh’s Farrell & Reisinger, a small firm formed from the ashes of Dreier LLP that once represented Rodriguez, has landed the work representing eight of the 13 players banned by MLB on Monday, all of whom except Rodriguez received 50-games suspensions.
Name partners Jay Reisinger and Thomas Farrell, whose past clients also include baseball stars Andy Pettitte and Sammy Sosa, represented Seattle Mariners catcher Jesus Montero and Houston Astros pitcher Sergio Escalona on their respective bans.
Reisinger also worked with partner Tina Miller in advising Texas Rangers outfielder Nelson Cruz, who cut ties with his Biogenesis-linked agents on Monday before accepting his own 50-game ban. Other Farrell & Reisinger clients affected by Monday’s action are New York Mets outfielders Cesar Puello and Jordany Valdespin, New York Yankees outfielder Fernando Martinez, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Antonio Bastardo, and San Diego Padres pitcher Fautino De Los Santos.
Reisinger, who declined to comment when contacted by The Am Law Daily, ceased his representation of Rodriguez about two weeks ago, according to a source familiar with the matter. Rodriguez also retained Roy Black of Miami’s Black, Srebnick, Kornspan & Stumpf earlier this year, although the well-regarded litigator is no longer part of the embattled Bronx Bomber's defense team.
Rodriguez is expeced to play Monday night for the Yankees under a provision of MLB's collective bargaining agreement with players that provides for appeals on drug-related offenses.
The name of Reed Smith’s Siev previously surfaced in reports about Rodriguez's dealings with Yankees management—including team president and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld senior counsel Randy Levine—over whether the third baseman was sufficiently healed from a hip injury to take the field for the team.
The Yankees released a statement Monday afternoon distancing themselves from media reports that the team aided MLB in its investigation as a means of extricating themselves from the five years and $114 million left on Rodriguez's contract.
Reed Smith and Siev, who spent two years as head of the firm's New York office, have handled litigation for Beyonce Knowles-Carter. The singer is, of course, married to rapper-turned-mogul Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, a friend of Rodriguez’s who entered the sports agency business earlier this year by signing Yankees star Robinson Cano and forging a partnership with top talent agency CAA. ( Rodriguez split with longtime agent Scott Boras, himself a lawyer, back in 2010.)
Rodriguez's legal team also includes Wm. David Cornwell Sr., a sports, media, and entertainment partner at Gordon & Rees in Atlanta. Cornwell, a well-known advocate for players in trouble over issues not confined to performance-enhancing drugs, joined Gordon & Rees last year after the firm absorbed his shop DNK Cornwell.
Cornwell did not respond to a request for comment about Rodriguez, who is reportedly planning to appeal his suspension in an arbitration proceeding before Fredric Horowitz that will not conclude until after the season. In a report about the Biogenesis saga in June, The Am Law Daily noted that Horowitz was the top paid system arbitrator used by both the league and the Major League Baseball Players Association in 2012.
Cornwell advised Milwaukee Brewers star Ryan Braun last year on the former National League Most Valuable Player's successful bid to scuttle a 50-game drug suspension handed down by MLB. In late July, Braun, no longer represented by Cornwell, agreed to a 65-game suspension as a result of his ties to Biogenesis.
The Am Law Daily has learned that Terry Prince, director of legal and business affairs at CAA Sports, took the lead representing Braun on his plea deal with MLB, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. CAA agent Nez Balelo, himself a former ballplayer, represents Braun, who publicly thanked both him and Prince last year after his previous 50-game suspension was overturned. ( Shyam Das, the arbitrator who cast the deciding vote against Braun's first suspension, was subsequently fired by MLB.)
As for Cornwell, he's also advising Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli in connection with his 50-game Biogenesis suspension, as well as Padres catcher Yasmani Grandal, who will face no further discipline after having already served a drug suspension earlier this year. (Grandal also suffered a serious knee injury last month.)
George Vujovich, general counsel of Scott Boras’s sports agency, represented Padres shortstop Everth Cabrera on his suspension, while Jupiter, Florida–solo practitioner Barry Praver took the lead for free agent pitcher Jordan Norberto. As noted by The Am Law Daily in June, Cozen O’Connor criminal defense cochair and commercial litigation vice chair Barry Boss has been advising suspended Detroit Tigers shortstop Jhonny Peralta.
Two other players named in Biogenesis records—Baltimore Orioles third baseman Danny Valencia and Washington Nationals pitcher Gio Gonzalez—have been cleared of wrongdoing and will not be suspended. Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr litigation chair Howard Shapiro advised Gonzalez, while Valencia was represented by the MLBPA.
Cristina Arguedas of Berkeley’s Arguedas, Cassman & Headley and Ethan Balogh of San Diego’s Coleman & Balogh are representing Oakland Athletics pitcher Bartolo Colon and Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Melky Cabrera, respectively. Neither face further discipline since both have already served 50-game suspensions.
Daniel Halem, a former Proskauer Rose partner serving as MLB’s general counsel for labor, is leading an in-house legal team for the league that includes labor counsel and senior director of drug policy Jonathan Coyles and senior labor relations counsel Steven Gonzalez, Patrick Houlihan, and Paul Mifsud. Former Morgan, Lewis & Bockius partner Robert Manfred Jr. serves as MLB’s executive vice president for economics and league affairs, while Thomas Ostertag holds the role of general counsel.
Proskauer sports law cohead Howard Ganz and labor and employment partner Neil Abramson in New York are serving as MLB’s outside disciplinary counsel, while Kobre & Kim partners Matthew Menchel and Adriana Riviere-Badell in Miami are handling litigation filed earlier this year by the league in Florida state court against Biogenesis and other defendants.
The MLBPA retained Michael Rubin of San Francisco’s Altshuler Berzon—named earlier this year an Am Law Litigator of the Week for his role representing former college athletes in an appellate win against video game company Electronic Arts—as counsel in connection with the Biogenesis probe.
MLBPA general counsel David Prouty, promoted to the position earlier this year from his previous role as chief labor counsel to the union, has also played a key part in the Biogenesis negotiations with the league, along with executive director and attorney Michael Weiner.
The MLBPA appointed ex-player Tony Clark last month to serve as deputy executive director to Weiner, who has been battling brain cancer for more than a year. Weiner told reporters at the All-Star Game in New York in July that the union would encourage players clearly guilty of Biogenesis offenses to take any plea deal offered by the league.

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