Main Menu
Photo of Grant F. Goeckner

Grant F. Goeckner

Partner - los angeles

Spotlight

Skating cautiously on the ice, hidden behind 15 pounds of gear, six-year-old Grant Goeckner-Zoeller was introduced to ice hockey for the first time. His passion for the game grew and was an integral part of his childhood, teaching him courage, strategy and strength. Playing ice hockey also gave Grant the ability to experience living in different locales. The Los Angeles native has lived in seven different states and one year abroad in France during his amateur and professional hockey career. 

Grant learned about collective bargaining from a fan’s perspective while waiting through  NHL work stoppages in 1992, 1995, and 2004.  But in 2008, Grant witnessed firsthand the organization of players and the bargaining for a new collective bargaining agreement in the Central Hockey League, the AA-level profession league Grant was playing in at the time.  Grant was fascinated by the process and began to think of labor and employment law as a future profession.  Fast-forward to 2012, when the most recent NHL lockout occurred, Grant now saw his childhood passion from the business and legal perspective, publishing two articles on the NHL lockout during his third year of law school.  Grant continues to exhibit the same traits he learned on the ice:  discipline, preparation, and competitiveness, while pursuing his new passion as an attorney.

Experience

Legal Expertise

Grant Goeckner is a labor & employment partner in MSK's Los Angeles office. His practice focuses on management-side labor and employment law, including litigation of CBA disputes, advice and counsel regarding compliance with entertainment industry CBAs, collective bargaining negotiation and administration, union avoidance, and NLRB charges and petitions.

Professional, Business and civic Affiliations

  • Member, Sports Lawyers Association

Other Career Experience

  • Vice President & Senior Counsel, HBO
  • Associate Attorney, MSK 
  • Labor Relations Intern, Disney ABC Television Group
  • Paralegal, O’Melveny & Myers
  • Judicial Extern to the Honorable Michael H. Dolinger, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

Headlines

Publications

  • California Labor Code § 2855 and Sports: Can Federal Labor Preemption Uphold the Enforceability of NHL Contracts for California Teams?
    2014
  • California Law is Cause for Caution Among Client Employers
    Law 360, November 11, 2014
  • Extraterritorial Lockouts in Sports: How the Alberta Labour Board Erred in Declining Jurisdiction over the NHL
    2013

Events & Speaking Engagements

Admissions

  • California, 2014
  • U.S. District Court
  •    Central District of California, 2014

Education

Columbia Law School, J.D., 2014

Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar
Executive Notes Editor, Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts

Princeton University, B.A., 2007

Back to Page