Christine Lazatin is a partner in the Corporate Department and a member of Proskauer’s Sports Group.
Christine regularly represents professional sports teams, leagues, owners, financial institutions and private capital firms in a variety of transactional matters, with a particular emphasis on acquisition and stadium financings, working capital facilities, and league-wide and league-level credit facilities. Over the years, she has advised major sports leagues (including the the NBA, NHL and MLS), as well as a number of NBA, NHL, NFL and MLB teams, in significant multi-billion dollar financing transactions, and she is known as one of the nation’s leading sports finance attorneys.
In addition to her finance work, Christine has advised on numerous expansion and ownership transactions for the NHL, NBA and MLS. She played a leading role in launching several emerging sports leagues, including MLS NEXT Pro, Major League Table Tennis, the Professional Women’s Hockey League and League One Volleyball, and she continues to represent such leagues on ongoing governance matters.
Christine has been recognized as an elite lawyer by various sports and legal publications. She was named by Sports Business Journal as a 2022 “Game Changer: Women in Sports Business,” has been recognized by SBJ as a “Power Player: Outside Counsel” in sports law, and is listed among the sports and entertainment industry’s top lawyers by The Legal 500 United States and Lawdragon 500. She is one of only six women ranked by Chambers USA in the Sports Law category.
Christine is a vice chair of the Firm’s Hiring Committee and a partner liason to the Proskauer Women’s Alliance.
Education
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Boston University School of Law, J.D.
cum laude
Editor-in-Chief, Boston University Annual Review of Banking and Financial Law
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Yale University, B.A.
Admissions & Qualifications
- New York
Awards & Recognition
Sports Business Journal Game Changers: Women in Sports Business 2022
Sports Business Journal Power Players: Outside Counsel 2021
Chambers USA: Nationwide: Sports Law 2019-2025 (Associate to Watch, 2019-2020; Up & Coming 2021)
The Legal 500 United States: Industry Focus: Sports 2024
Lawdragon 500 Leading Global Entertainment, Sports & Media Lawyers 2025
Matters
Some examples of Christine鈥檚 work include:
- Representing the NBA with respect to its $5.5 billion league-wide team facilities
- Representing Soccer United Marketing, an affiliate of MLS, in its $25 million financing with a syndicate of Black-owned banks organized by the National Black Bank Foundation, the first major commercial deal in which a U.S. sports league transacted exclusively with Black-owned banks
- Representing two major sports leagues in upsizing and extending their league level financings ($900 million and $575 million, respectively)
- Representing JPMorgan as agent in credit facilities for the Chicago Cubs, the New York Mets, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Tampa Bay Rays
- Representing the Philadelphia Eagles in financing the team’s renovation of Lincoln Financial Field
- Representing a global financial institution in upsizing and extending a $230 million line of credit for the largest minority owner of an MLB club
- Representing an MLB club in an aggregate $350 million term loan and revolving facility from a subsidiary of a global asset manager
- Representing various NFL owners in financings with JPMorgan and Wells Fargo