Alicia Jessop

Of Counsel | Member of the California and Colorado Bar

Alicia Jessop is an attorney, founder of the media platform Ruling Sports, and a tenured Professor at Pepperdine University.

As an attorney, Alicia helps clients develop and preserve their legacies. She represents college and professional athletes, sports agencies, influencers, broadcasters and businesses in a range of transactional and intellectual property matters, including sponsorship and NIL contract drafting and negotiation; business formation, contracts and transactions; sport agency compliance; company acquisitions; trademark registration; and intellectual property licensing and enforcement.

Alicia also practices trust and estate law, where she counsels members of her community on ensuring their legacies extend beyond their lives by drafting wills, trusts, powers of attorney and healthcare directives.

Alicia presently serves as the Co-Chair of the Sports Division of the American Bar Association’s Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries. In 2025 she was named a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, an invitation-only recognition awarded to less than 1% of attorneys in the U.S.

Founding Ruling Sports in 2011, Alicia has spent over a decade as a sport journalist. She has been a contributor to The Athletic, The Washington Post, Forbes, CNBC, Huffington Post and SI.com. Through these roles, she was one of the few female sports writers credentialed for events including, the Super Bowl, NBA Finals, NBA All-Star Game, Indianapolis 500, Final Four and more.

As a scholar, Alicia’s research centers on athlete well-being. She is the Program Chair of the Sport Administration program at Pepperdine University. Through her research, she has work with several U.S. Congresspeople and Senators to draft proposed federal legislation to protect athletes’ rights. From 2023-2025 she was one of 16 appointed members to the NCAA’s Division I Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee. Alicia is a past-President of the Sport and Recreation Law Association and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport and the Journal of Global Sport Management.

Alicia is a 2006 alumna of the Colorado School of Mines, where she was the second female Student Body President in the university’s history, and 2009 alumna of Chapman University School of Law. She is a member of Sigma Kappa Sorority, the Junior League and supports organizations working to end the orphan cycle and foster economic growth in Haiti.

Education

Juris Doctor, Chapman University, 2009, Cum Laude
Bachelor of Science, Economics, Colorado School of Mines, 2006