Laura Warren
Senior Vice President, General Counsel
Laura Warren was hired as Chicago Fire FC’s Senior Vice President, General Counsel in April 2020.
Warren, a seasoned sports executive and top legal advisor, is responsible for advising the Club on a host of sports and risk management issues, including counseling club leadership and staff throughout on various corporate transactions and contracts; sponsorship and vendor management; intellectual property and marketing matters; match and event operations; media rights and communications; employment issues; athletic facility development and operations; compliance and litigation; athlete health and welfare, and youth programming.
Upon joining the Fire, Warren created the club’s first in-house legal department. Warren also oversees the club’s Human Resources department that manages people and talent matters including employee recruiting, compensation and benefits, engagement, and learning and development. Notable projects include legal operations for the development of the club’s new training facility, negotiations with Chicago’s Soldier Field stadium, and the development of a new lower division league team, Chicago Fire II.
Prior to joining the Chicago Fire, Laura worked for a decade as a Senior Associate General Counsel for DePaul University as the primary legal advisor for its collegiate athletics department. Before DePaul, Laura worked as a commercial litigator for the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin LLP and served as a judicial clerk for United States District Court Judge Lee H. Rosenthal in Houston, Texas.
Outside the club, Warren serves as an adjunct professor in sports law at Northwestern University and is actively involved as a leader in local and national sports organizations. Warren is a former co-chair and current Advisory Board member for the American Bar Association’s Sports Division and serves as a governing committee member for the ABA’s Forum on Entertainment and Sports and a planning committee member for the Sports Lawyers Association. Warren is also an advocate for empowering women and girls through sport, having previously served on the boards of the Chicago chapter of Women in Sports and Events (WISE) and Girls in the Game, a non-profit delivering sports, health and leadership programming to underprivileged girls in Chicago. Additionally, Warren was recently named to the Crain’s Chicago Business 2022 Notable Gen X Leaders in Sports list.
Laura graduated with honors from the University of Chicago Law School and Illinois Wesleyan University, where she played collegiate volleyball and softball. She currently resides in the western suburbs with her husband and two boys, who likewise share a passion for sports.