About Us

Vered Yakovee is a sports law veteran with experience and insights from multiple vantage points in the industry. Before founding Yakovee Law, Vered served as Vice President and Associate General Counsel for the Miami HEAT and FTX Arena (then AmericanAirlines Arena), and as Associate Team Counsel for the Boston Celtics. Prior to joining the Celtics, she operated the Law Offices of Vered N. Yakovee through which she represented the Los Angeles Lakers, the Allstate Sugar Bowl, and other best-in-class properties on a wide array of transactional matters as well as insurance and risk management matters. Prior to that, she was an Associate with Dickstein, Shapiro, Morin & Oshinsky, LLP, where she co-founded the firm's Sports Insurance Initiative. 

Vered earned her J.D. from USC Gould School of Law and her B.A. in Philosophy from the University of California San Diego. She currently teaches the inaugural undergraduate Sports Law course at USC. In the past, she taught Sports Law at Boston College Law School, ISDE in Madrid, Spain, and her alma mater USC Gould School of Law, where she also served as the founding faculty advisor for the USC Sports Law Society. For one semester, she lived on campus at Dimitris Perrotis College in Thessaloniki, Greece, where she taught International Business Law and coached the men's basketball team.

Since 2014, Vered has been an active member of the Board of Directors of the Sports Lawyers Association ("SLA"). She is Co-Chair of the SLA Outreach Committee and was previously SLA Secretary. Vered is also a member of the Governing Committee of the ABA Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries (the "Forum"), and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Forum's journal, the Entertainment & Sports Lawyer, as well as Co-Chair of the Forum's Sports Division. She was named one of Southern California's Super Lawyers Rising Stars by the publishers of Law & Politics and Los Angeles Magazine for six consecutive years between 2008 and 2013. She is an active member of the Bar in California, Florida, and Massachusetts.

Vered is the devoted mom of one son and spends her free time with him, usually cooking, eating, or chasing him around until it is time to cook and eat again. 

Kate Hardy is a highly experienced alcohol beverage attorney, with over eleven years of US experience in addition to a wide range of international alcohol roles. She is an Australian lawyer admitted in the states of New York and California in the United States, and in the state of South Australia. She is in-house counsel to the Australian Wine Research Institute, is Senior Legal Counsel for Accolade Wines, is a Non-Executive Director of the McLaren Vale Grape Wine & Tourism Association, and advises clients about legal and business operations connected to the alcohol industry. She was a partner with Strike & Techel (precursor to Strike, Kerr & Johns) in San Francisco for five years, and a senior associate with Nixon Peabody in New York and San Francisco for six years before that. Kate spent three years in Paris, France as Unit Manager for the Law & Economy Commission of the International Wine Organization (OIV), and practiced law in Australia before that. She speaks fluent French and Italian and is a qualified French interpreter.