David A. Grenardo is a professor of law and associate director of the Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions. He joined St. Thomas Law in 2022. Grenardo was previously a professor at St. Mary’s University School of Law (Texas) where he taught Professional Responsibility, Contracts, Sports Law, Business Associations, Civil Procedure, and International Sports Law.

He has presented on professionalism and ethics multiple times locally, statewide and nationally, including at the American Bar Association’s Annual Meeting and the ABA’s Annual National Conference on Professional Responsibility. He has also been quoted in the ABA Journal on the topic of civility. He practiced law in California and Texas for three large law firms – Jones Day, DLA Piper, and King & Spalding – for nearly a decade before joining the legal academy in 2011.

He represented clients in a wide variety of complex commercial litigation matters, including contract, tort and product liability cases. He dedicated a significant part of his practice to pro bono work, which included protecting the rights of, among others, domestic violence victims, the developmentally disabled and First Amendment litigants.

He has received numerous awards for his pro bono efforts, including the Frank J. Scurlock Award, awarded by the State Bar of Texas, the Harriet Buhai Center for Family Law Pro Bono Panel Volunteer of the Year, the Wiley W. Manuel Award bestowed by the State Bar of California, the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program Distinguished Service Award, and Texas Civil Rights Project Pro Bono Champion.

His scholarship focuses on professional responsibility, sports law, legal pedagogy, and the practice of law. He has published or forthcoming articles in the Harvard Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law, the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, Pepperdine Law Review, Brooklyn Law Review, Oregon Law Review, the Berkeley Journal of Entertainment & Sports Law, the Journal of Catholic Legal Studies, and the University of North Carolina School of Law’s First Amendment Law Review, among others.

Grenardo has been quoted in multiple articles on sports law, including by the New York Times, ESPN and Boston Globe, and he has spoken on the radio multiple times in the area of sports law, including an appearance on Knowledge@Wharton Business Radio on Sirius XM. His op-eds on sports (as they relate to business and society) have appeared in, among other publications, Fortune Magazine (solicited), AP News, Yahoo! Finance, Houston Chronicle, and the San Antonio Express-News.

St. Mary’s University School of Law’s Phi Delta Phi chapter (which consists of students in the top 20 percent of their class) honored Grenardo as the Faculty Member of the Year in 2017, and he was also selected as the Professor of the Year by the Student Bar Association at St. Mary’s Law School in 2014. He was also selected as the recipient for the law school of the 2022 Distinguished Faculty Award bestowed by the St. Mary’s Alumni Association. He earned his B.A. from Rice University where he played football and was a four-year letterman. He earned his J.D. from Duke University School of Law.

Publications

Selected Articles in a Periodical

• Getting to the Root of the Problem: Where are All the Black Owners in Sports?, 91 UMKC L. Rev. (2023 Forthcoming)
• The Phantom Menace to Professional Identity Formation and Law Success: Imposter Syndrome, 47 U. Dayton L. Rev. (2022 Forthcoming)
• Marianist Law Schools: Demonstrating the Courage to be Catholic, 60 J. Cath. Legal Stud. (2022 Forthcoming)
• It’s Worth a Shot: Can Sports Combat Racism in the United States?, 12 Harv. J. Sports & Ent. L. 237 (2021)
• An Intersection of Gender, Race, and Sports: Guidelines for Universities Determining Whether to Suspend Athletes Accused of Title IX Violations, 9 Berkeley J. Ent. & Sports L. (2020)
• A Lesson in Civility, 32 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 135 (2019)
• The Blue Devil’s in the Details: How a Free Market Approach to Compensating College Athletes Would Work, 46 Pepp. L. Rev. 203 (2019)
• The Duke Model: A Performance-Based Solution for Compensating College Athletes, 83 Brook. L. Rev. 157 (2017)
• The Continued Exploitation of the College Athlete: Confessions of a Former College Athlete Turned Law Professor, 95 Or. L. Rev. 223 (2016)
• Long Live Bohatch: Why A Law Firm Partner Can Be Fired For Following The Rules Of Professional Conduct, 34 Miss. C. L. Rev. 15 (2015)
• Improving The Law School Classroom And Experience Through Prayer: An Empirical Study, 13 Ave Maria L. Rev. 68 (2015)
• You are Not Alone: What Law Schools Must Do to Help Law Students with Mental Health and Substance Abuse Issues, 10 HLRe 7 (2019) (Online) https://houstonlawreview.org/article/10031-you-are-not-alone-what-law-schools-must-do-to-help-law-students-with-mental-health-and-substance-abuse-issues
• The High Costs of Incivility, 43 Student Lawyer, Issue 8, 24 (April/May 2015)
• An Uprising of Civility In Texas, 5 HLRe 1 (2014) (Online) (solicited)
• Why Should I Become An Associate At A Large Law Firm? And If I Do, Then What Should I Expect And How Do I Succeed? 41 Rutgers L. Rec. 65, 2014 (Online)
• Making Civility Mandatory: Moving from Aspired to Required, 11 Cardozo Pub. L. Pol’y & Ethics J. 239, Spring 2013
• Enforcing Civility: Holding Attorneys To A Higher Standard Of Conduct, American Bar Association’s 39th Annual National Conference on Professional Responsibility, Program Materials, May 2013
• How Low Can You Go? Analyzing Deposition Misconduct and Avoiding Common Deposition Mistakes, American Bar Association 2013 Environmental, Mass Torts and Products Liability Litigation Committees’ Joint CLE Seminar, Program Materials, January 2013
• Tales From the Abyss: What Does It Take to Get Disbarred These Days? American Bar Association 2012 Environmental, Mass Torts and Products Liability Litigation Committees’ Joint CLE Seminar, Program Materials, January 2012
• Take One Step Forward: Federal Courts Continue To Find That Volunteers Are Shielded From Retaliation Based On Protected Speech Under The First Amendment, 10 First Amend. L. Rev. 99 [Univ. of North Carolina Sch. of Law], Fall 2011 (lead author)
• Ten Step Guide To Oral Argument for Junior Attorneys, San Francisco Daily Journal, June 8, 2010
• Four Critical Tips for Taking Your First Witness, ABA Mass Torts Newsletter, Spring 2010

Selected Media Highlights

• ESPN, “Why critics say a Trump-era Title IX rule hurts coaches’ ability to discipline athletes accused of sexual misconduct,” March 4, 2022
• Boston Globe, “I don’t need Eminem’s knee. I need the NFL to own its systematic racism problem.”, February 17, 2022
• Instant Replay, KSAT ABC Channel 12 San Antonio, “St. Mary’s law professor weighs in on paying student athletes,” November 3, 2019
• ABA Journal, “Lawyer speech triggers both civility and constitutional concerns,” September 1, 2019
• Fortune, “Nike Should Stop Sponsoring Colleges Until Student-Athletes Can Get Paid,” February 28, 2019
• San Francisco Chronicle, College football ‘revenue games’: What’s in it for the smaller schools?, September 12, 2018
• Houston Chronicle, “NFL policy is about divide and conquer,” June 2, 2018
• San Antonio Express-News, “Sports an example for a divided society,” October 2, 2017
• Vice Sports, “Amateurism Isn’t Educational: Debunking the NCAA’s Dumbest Lie,” June 14, 2017
• Athletic Business, “Everybody is getting paid except the college athletes,” June 2017
• Nate & Creight SB Nation Radio, “College Athletes Pay-for-Play Model,” March 31, 2017
• Lawdragon Campus, “St. Mary’s Law School Provides Students a Sense of Mission,” August 29, 2016
• CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company), “Penny Oleksiak is famous – now what?”, August 17, 2016
• Sports can help, but equality comes with systemic change, San Antonio Express-News, October 30, 2016
• Texas Public Radio’s The Source, “Should We Pay College Athletes?” May 4, 2016
• San Antonio Express-News, “St. Mary’s law prof says NCAA student-athlete rules are unfair,” April 18, 2016
• The New York Times, “When an Olympian Goes to College, Riches Stay Out of Reach,” April 17, 2016
• San Antonio Express-News, “Experts on Perry Lawyers: You Get What You Pay For,” July 26, 2015
• WOAI NBC News Channel 4 San Antonio, “How Deep Does Courthouse Corruption Run,” July 16, 2015

Selected Presentations

Professor Grenardo has given over 90 presentations. Listed below are some of his most notable presentations:

• Speaker, “Mandating Civility—Yes or No?”, American Inns of Court 2021 National Conversation on Civility, October 21, 2021 (virtual) (solicited)
• Speaker, “The Phantom Menace to Professional Identity Formation and Law Success: Imposter Syndrome,” Professional Identity Formation and Bias in Legal Education, AALS Balance Section Professional Identity, October 15, 2021 (virtual)
• Panelist, “Effective Advocate or Just a Jerk? The Ongoing Discussion of Lawyer Incivility,” American Bar Association’s 46th Annual National Conference on Professional Responsibility, June 2, 2021 (virtual) (solicited)
• Panelist, “First Generation Lawyer Challenges and Tools,” Texas Lawyers’ Assistance Program’s Remote Well-Being Wednesday Speaker Series, February 24, 2021 (via Zoom) (solicited)
• Panelist, “The Dignity of Persons and Divine Presence: The Aim of Education as the Growth of the Soul,” 30th Annual Lilly Fellows National Conference, October 9, 2020 (via Zoom) (solicited)
• Speaker, “A Lesson in Civility: How to Teach Law Students a Critical Aspect of Lawyering,” Institute for Law Teaching & Learning Summer Conference, Washburn University School of Law, Topeka, Kansas, June 4, 2019
• Host and Creator, “Ethics Gameshow,” 3rd National Young Energy Professionals’ Law Conference, San Antonio, TX, April 12, 2019 (solicited)
• Panelist, “Teaching the Contracts Course: Strategies, Techniques, and Ideas for Consideration,” 13th  Annual International Conference on Contracts (KCON), Orlando, FL, February 24, 2018
  2017 Mart Vogel Lecturer on Professionalism and Legal Ethics and Panelist, “You’re Not Alone,” North Dakota State Bar Annual Meeting, June 16, 2017
• Panelist, “Implementing Ethical Formation & Professional Identity in Law School,” 2016 Conference of Religiously Affiliated Law Schools, Virginia Beach, VA, September 30, 2016
• Panelist, “The Duke Model: A Performance-Based Solution for Compensating College Athletes,” Southeastern Association of Law Schools New Scholars Panel, Amelia Island, FL, August 6, 2016
• Moderator, “Public Policy Considerations in Contract Law,” 11th International Conference on Contracts (KCON XI), San Antonio, TX, Feb. 27, 2016
• Speaker, “The Continued Exploitation of the College Student-Athlete:  Confessions of a Former Student-Athlete Turned Law Professor,” Junior Faculty Workshop, Michigan State University School of Law, Lansing, MI, Oct. 23, 2015
• Speaker, “The Continued Exploitation of the College Student-Athlete:  Confessions of a Former Student-Athlete Turned Law Professor,” Faculty Workshop, Marquette University School of Law, Milwaukee, WI, Oct. 22, 2015
• Panelist, “Policing Lawyer Manners:  The Complicated Question of Civility Compliance,” 2015 American Bar Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, Aug. 2, 2015
• Panelist, “Ethics & Music Law:  Face the Music,” The Entertainment and Sports Law Section of the State Bar of Texas, Texas State Bar Convention, San Antonio, TX, June 18, 2015
• Panelist, “Ethics & Film:  It’s Only a Movie,” The Entertainment and Sports Law Section of the State Bar of Texas, Texas State Bar Convention, San Antonio, TX, June 18, 2015
• Panelist, “Ethics & Sports Law:  The Sporting Life,” The Entertainment and Sports Law Section of the State Bar of Texas, Texas State Bar Convention, San Antonio, TX, June 18, 2015
• Moderator and Panel Creator, “The Legal Profession Has Had One Too Many: What Law Schools and State Bars Can Do To Identify and Help Law Students Who Have Substance Abuse or Mental Health Issues,” American Bar Association’s 41st Annual National Conference on Professional Responsibility, Denver, CO, May 29, 2015
• Speaker, “Making Civility Mandatory:  Moving From Aspired to Required,” American Association of Law Libraries 107th Annual Meeting & Conference, Academic Law Library Directors’ Breakfast Speech, San Antonio, TX, July 13, 2014
• Panelist, “Ethics for Healthcare Attorneys,” American Bar Association Health Law Section, Young Lawyers’ Division, and the Center For Professional Development, National Webinar, Dec. 5, 2013
• Lead Panelist, “Making Civility Mandatory:  Holding Attorneys to a Higher Standard of Conduct,” American Bar Association’s 39th Annual National Conference on Professional Responsibility, San Antonio, TX, May 31, 2013
• Speaker, “Do You Have What It Takes to Win?  ‘Jeopardy!’ Style Ethics Review,” American Bar Association 2013 Environmental, Mass Torts and Products Liability Litigation Committees’ Joint CLE Seminar, Steamboat Springs, CO, Feb. 1, 2013
• Speaker, “Final Jeopardy Ethics Question: How Much Are You Willing To Bet On The Answer…Your License?” American Bar Association 2012 Environmental, Mass Torts and Products Liability Litigation Committees’ Joint CLE Seminar, Hollywood, FL, Jan. 20, 2012
• Guest Lecturer, “A Lesson in Civility,” Legal Profession Class attended by all 1L’s of Mercer Law School, Mercer University School of Law, Macon, GA, Feb. 13, 2015
• Speaker, “Can Good Lawyers Finish First? – Civility & Success in Big Law,” Duke University School of Law’s Christian Legal Society and Black Law Students’ Association, Duke University School of Law, Durham, NC, February 6, 2014

David Grenardo Curriculum Vitae