In conversation with Mat Jessup, Game Legal

In this blog post, we speak to Mat Jessep, Lawyer & Consultant at Game Legal. Mat has set his own path by founding Game Legal, working with clients in the exciting space of sports, esports and pop culture (brands, film, music, TV, gaming, art, fashion, the internet) - aka all the fun stuff! Mat speaks openly about his path to law land, including the challenges, risks and different opportunities he took along the way (of which they are many), and he shares his top 3 tips for law students (and they are real pearls of wisdom, we promise).

TLC: What made you want to study law?

MJ: I had studied military law as an Officer in the Royal Australian Air Force and found that I enjoyed the way it made me think. When I discharged from the RAAF at 28 in 2003 and thought about what to do next, I decided to look into a legal qualification over an MBA. To be honest, as a mature aged student I never saw myself actually being a lawyer, but I enjoyed the process of studying law in the military and thought that a legal qualification would be useful back in civilian life.

TLC: Tell us about your journey to how you got to where you are.

MJ: It took me 6 years of study at night school and on weekends to finish my qualification via the LPAB and the University of Sydney's Law Extension Committee, and my wife and I had 2 children along the way. I then funded myself and took time off to complete the College of Law course.

I didn't plan my early career - as a 34 year old law graduate and newly admitted solicitor I never had many opportunities presented to me, but I knew I needed as much experience as I could get in a short amount of time as possible. Without job offers or much help, I made some opportunities for myself and then I made the most of them.

I volunteered on a part-time basis in pro bono roles in community legal centres to get PLT experience, then I kept volunteering once I was admitted. Eventually I was running a Homeless Persons Legal Service clinic at Newtown Mission on Friday lunchtimes for the PIAC, as well as giving advice of an evening in clinics at Marrickville Legal Centre and the early days of Salvos Legal Humanitarian. At one point in my mid/late-30's I had 6 jobs - 3 part-time and 3 voluntary, with a family to support as well.

I used my "street law" experience and contacts to somehow land a 12 week contract to fill a Civil Law Solicitor role in Legal Aid NSW's Liverpool office in 2011. Taking such a short-term contract was a risk, but I saw it as a valuable experience for me. That short-term contract turned into a 2 year role with Legal Aid, during which I was running up 2-3 free advice clinics a week and appearing before and advocating for clients in State and Federal tribunals on employment, housing, debt, and consumer law matters. The training I received over 2 years would probably be the equivalent of 3-5 years in any other environment.

I loved helping my clients and worked with amazing people doing brilliant things for the socially excluded and financially disadvantaged at Legal Aid, but the work was intense and the pressure to help people at their lowest (and often without much time) eventually got to me and I started to have panic attacks on the 40km drive home and became concerned about my mental health. So I elected to start my own practice in the suburbs in 2013 when my contract wasn't renewed and Liverpool lost its civil law practice.

My own business was a general commercial law practice, with a mix of litigation and a "desk" (or transactional) practice. Eventually I found it difficult to combine a court based practice and a transactional one, so I decided to focus on commercial transactional law. I also realised that I had to focus on a sector that would allow me to gain the most enjoyment out of being a lawyer.

Prior to joining the military, I worked in corporate marketing roles, including as brand and product manager for DHL, Accor Hotels (Sofitel and Novotel) and Subaru motor vehicles. In these roles I often managed sports sponsorships and endorsements in the arts and entertainment sectors and I loved it. So when I looked for a niche to focus being a lawyer in, I decided to "become" a sports and entertainment lawyer, using my backgrounds in marketing and as a lawyer.

Without knowing anyone and with no clients in sports or entertainment, I networked and got myself up to speed with issues faced by these industries. From there I built a profile and relationships and started to get opportunities to work for clients - this quickly became my core focus.

In 2016, while at a sports law conference in Los Angeles, USA, I realised that esports was the real deal and managed to get involved in that growing space also.

In 2018 I moved my practice across to international law firm, DWF. I spent 18 months trying to grow my practice further and worked on some great matters for brilliant clients. I finished up with DWF on 01 November 2019, but will stay close and continue to work with them as client needs require as I re-focus on my own practice.

Looking back on my career so far, I can see where the dots join up, but I had no path laid out for me at the beginning and had to work hard to make opportunities and then make the most of them. I'm very happy where I am now, but I probably wouldn't put my wife and kids through it all again though - at times it has been a relentless slog and the financial realities of changing careers in your mid-30's is hard enough, but they seem to be magnified in law where law schools pump out the best and the brightest and the youngest year after year.

My family has had to often go without as I developed my career in the law and in sports and entertainment. But that is like anything worthwhile, right? Great things are often hard, and if you want something bad enough (which I guess I did along the way as I overcame imposters syndrome and realised I was a good lawyer) you have to do it yourself. No one else will do it for you. Hopefully my kids will appreciate the expensive lesson?

TLC: What is the funniest or weirdest moment you've had in your legal career?
MJ: Probably the funniest/weirdest moment for me was when I had to call the Associate to Justice Hamerschlag to ask about a procedural point for a matter in His Honour's list. His Honour answered the phone himself and after a moment of stunned silence from me, gave me a few minutes to listen to my query and then sent me on my way with what I needed to know, which was probably in a practice note online somewhere.

It probably doesn't sound funny to anyone else or now, but his manner and his tone blew me away as much as the surprise of him answering the phone and actually helping out a sole suburban lawyer did.

TLC: What is your one piece of advice to law students of today?

MJ: I get approached by a lot of law students and young lawyers asking me how they can become sports lawyers (the coolest kind of lawyer) - I always try and help out and provide some ideas. To a more general audience, these ideas are:

1. focus on being a good lawyer, before specialising in anything - be patient; spend your time on your feet in courtrooms and tribunals where you argue for your client's position and have to think on your feet; understand your client and what they are trying to do; and use your ears and mouth in the ratio that they've been fitted to your head, 2:1; say yes to opportunities and new experiences.

2. immerse yourself in areas of interest - understand the industry and try to gain an insider's perspective; read up on the cases relevant to those areas (in your spare time); volunteer in roles that get you some unique and valuable experience on the ground in your areas of interest (develop some sweat equity and real world exposure); and start writing articles on what you learn, see, and experience (use LinkedIn, start a blog, sit on a panel...).

3. network, and network to give value - join associations relevant to your areas of interest and meet people in those fields; when meeting people and talking to them always be thinking to yourself "help this person" - focus on what you can do for them, not what you can take from them; be valuable; add value; give.

4. The rest is up to them.