About Jeff Blank



A lifelong baseball fan, Jeff Blank has become a leading sports attorney.  From representing baseball players as their agent to being retained by other agents and players for a wide variety of legal work, including baseball arbitration cases, Jeff has a wide array of experience.

Jeff grew up a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers.  A three-time winner of the Los Angeles Dodgers Think Blue Week, Jeff served as the bat boy, PA announcer and radio announcer.  After serving as the PA announcer for the Granada Hills High School baseball team, Jeff became the Sports Information Director for the UCLA baseball team from 1995 to 1998.  In this role, Jeff interacted with players, coaches, fans and the media on a daily basis.  The job entailed many responsibilities, including marketing and promoting UCLA baseball players, preparing the team’s media guide and game stories, and performing the team’s PA announcer and radio announcer duties.

Jeff developed friendships with many of the top UCLA prospects, observing their transition from amateur baseball to professional baseball. This valuable experience gave Jeff a behind the scenes look at the Major League baseball draft and spurred his interest in pursuing a law degree and representing baseball players.

Being associated with UCLA baseball for so many years also gave Jeff a unique opportunity to work with Dennis Gilbert (special assistant to White Sox owner) and Reich Katz & Landis (one of the largest sports agencies in the country at the time).

Chosen by the UCLA Athletic Department to receive a Sears Directors’ Cup Postgraduate Scholarship, Jeff attended UCLA Law School from 1998 to 2001.  While in law school, Jeff participated in a sports arbitration training seminar/clinic with the Dodgers’ general counsel and Angels’ outside arbitration counsel.  During that time, several UCLA baseball players, including Garrett Atkins, sought his representation.  At the age of 23, this marked the beginning of Jeff’s baseball representation career.

After law school, Jeff worked for Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP, one of the country’s top law firms.  Focusing on sports law and business litigation, Jeff gained an extensive amount of legal experience, including trial work, preparing and handling arbitrations, conducting mediations, drafting and arguing motions, taking and defending depositions and negotiating and drafting complex agreements.  Jeff was Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton’s lead associate on the high profile City of Anaheim vs. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim name change case.

Jeff left Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP in 2007 to start his own practice.  Jeff is now a partner at Garcia Rainey Blank & Bowerbank LLP and chairs the firm’s Sports Law Practice Group.  He represents high profile athletes and clients in a wide variety of matters, including baseball arbitration cases, employment contracts for agencies and agents, business law litigation, family law litigation, estate planning matters, and an assortment of transactional matters.

Jeff also teaches Sports Law, most recently serving as an adjunct professor at UC Irvine School of Law.