Law - Sports, Entertainment & Arts Law Online Graduate Certificate - MSL Program

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The graduate certificate in Sprots, Entertainment & Arts Law (SEAL) fills a gap in the legal education market and leverages the strengths of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, the larger University and its alumni, and the region.  Our University and region have long produced leaders in sports, entertainment, and arts, from Panther to Steeler Nation, Fred Rogers to George Romero, and August Wilson to Andy Warhol.  In today’s rapidly changing, increasingly intersecting, and highly competitive sports, entertainment, and arts industries, leaders also need legal skills, knowledge, understanding, and connections to succeed.  By launching the SEAL certificate program, Pitt Law is helping to ensure that our graduates, the University, and the region will receive their cultural, social, and economic return on investment.

The SEAL certificate is an 11-month, accelerated program that targets the market of business, legal, and creative professionals who are currently working or planning to work in sports, entertainment, and or arts/sectors, and who wish to expand their legal skills, knowledge and understanding of these industries. These three synergistic sectors present similar legal issues, involving labor and employment, intellectual property, corporate, and commercial transactions law.  Pitt Law Faculty with expertise in these fields oversees the development and implementation of the SEAL courses, which are taught by regular and adjunct Pitt Law faculty with industry experience.  

By combining the study of sports, entertainment, and arts law into one program, the SEAL certificate seizes an opportunity to fill a gap left in the fields of sports, entertainment, and arts law education.  Currently, the only programs offered by U.S. law schools that cover all three sectors are costly, in-person, full-time programs limited to lawyers or law students seeking degrees.   Although a few part-time, online programs in these legal fields do now exist, these programs force students to choose one or two sectors, despite the increasing intersection of all three of these competitive industries. 

SEAL students can apply their credits towards fulfilling the requirements in our Master of Studies in Law (MSL) degree. 

Students may elect to combine their certificate studies with the Online MSL core courses to earn both a Master’s Degree and a professional certificate in as little as two years, studying part-time.