Frederick R. Nance

Frederick R. Nance is the Global Managing Partner of the law firm Squire Patton Boggs, US LLP and a highly recognized business, entertainment and litigation lawyer. He is a leader in the law firm and highly regarded legal & business counselor as well as a nationally well-known Sports and Entertainment Law practitioner.

He is associated with several high-profile clients and cases. For example, he handles an ongoing series of critical negotiations concerning community interests in Northeast Ohio, and he serves as a business counsel to NBA star LeBron James, comedian Dave Chappelle and many other notable athletes and entertainers. As a trial litigator, he routinely appears before the federal and state courts.

He serves as a fiduciary director on the board of the Cleveland Clinic, and as a member on the boards of the Greater Cleveland Partnership as well as the publicly traded company RPM International Inc. He has worked as an outside director for six years to the publicly traded McDonald & Company Investments, Inc., and has been a member of the Audit and Compensation Committees.

He has also served on the board of several nonprofits including service on the boards of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland Foundation and BioEnterprise Inc, Team NEO, the Cleveland Museum of Art as well as ten years on the board of the Cleveland Foundation.

He holds a long record of civic leadership at the highest levels in the Cleveland area. For example, he served as a standing member of the Executive Committee of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, as the Chairman of the Board at Cleveland’s 14,000+ chamber of commerce from 2006 to 2008, and as a member of the Executive Committee and President of the 50 Club of Cleveland.

He was primary outside counsel to Cleveland City and its former Mayor Michael White from 1991 to 2001. He assisted in different types of impactful initiatives and development projects such as spearheading the battle to keep the Browns in Cleveland and leading the litigation and negotiation that resulted in the Browns franchise returning to the city when the former owner relocated the team.

Frederick Nance received recognition for his leadership roles in many high stakes community initiatives and got inducted into the Northeast Ohio Business Hall of Fame in 2015. He became the only lawyer getting inducted in the previous 16 years and the seventh lawyer in the history of Cleveland to receive such recognition.

He gained extensive experience in the practice area of sports and entertainment over the years, and the authorities selected him for the position of the Commissioner of the National Football League among several hundred candidates as one of five finalists. Later, Randy Lerner, the owner of Cleveland Browns, asked him to join the front office of his team and he served as the Browns General Counsel for three years, while remaining a partner in his law firm.

The seminal sports business publication, Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal recognized him as certainly one of the top sports lawyers in the country in the year 2012. He is on the Advisory Board of the National Association of Black Sports Professionals and leads the US Sports and Entertainment practice of his law firm.

He has obtained substantial firm leadership experience by serving two four-year terms on the worldwide seven-person Management Committee of his law firm Squire Patton Boggs and also as its Regional Managing Partner.

Frederick R. Nance earned his Bachelor’s of Arts in Economics from Harvard University and his Juris Doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School in 1975 and 1978 respectively. He obtained the license to practice law in the state of Ohio, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Northern District Court of Ohio in 1978. He started working with the law firm Squire Patton Boggs in the same year.