TEACHING JUSTICE SM FACULTY MEMBER AUTHORS SPORT LAW AND ETHICS TEXTBOOK BY JEAN HUNT
“It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.” —Edmund Burke, Irish statesman (1729-1797) Tasked with revamping an undergraduate sports law course to include ethics, Sport Management lecturer and practicing attorney Marissa Pollick found it difficult to find a textbook that would cover both disciplines and work with the new curriculum. So Pollick wrote a textbook, her first—Introduction to Legal and Ethical Issues in Sport—that was published on August 9. Each chapter approaches a topic from two perspectives: what is legal, and what is ethical. “I wanted to distinguish legal and ethical issues in each relevant content area, and include case notes and hypothetical case scenarios where applicable,” she said. “This is different from the texts that I have used for my undergraduate students, which are more like a narrative introduction to sports law.
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“Many sports law textbooks are very good,” she adds. “However, they do not specifically examine ethical issues in sport. My collection of ethics resources was valuable; however, I wanted to synthesize the fundamentals of law and legal cases with ethical concepts and related case studies.”
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Pollick has been teaching at U-M Kinesiology since 2004, beginning with a graduate course in sports law, Legal Aspects of Sport. In 2011, she began teaching an introductory version for undergraduates, SM/AES 333, now titled Legal and Ethical Issues in Sport. Later she would help develop and teach SM 436, Race and Cultural Issues in Sport, and SM 433, Sport and Public Policy. Pollick comes from a family of lawyers, including her grandfather, father, and two brothers. She credits her parents—both U-M graduates—as her role models: Sidney Pollick, a successful trial lawyer in Detroit, for
Marissa Pollick
his legal acumen; and Esther Pollick, for her social awareness and activism. Pollick is herself a U-M grad who majored in history before going on to U-M Law School. “History is an excellent major for aspiring lawyers,” she said. “It requires extensive reading and writing, as well as research and analytical skills that are critical to success in law school.” Beginning her career in large firms in Chicago and Detroit, Pollick focused on corporate law and commercial litigation. After joining her father’s law firm in Detroit, she had the opportunity to represent coaches and women’s tennis professionals as attorney and agent. “Over time, I was able to pursue my true passion, which was constitutional and civil rights cases, including Title IX litigation,” she said.
