Jerry McDevitt On What Cemented His Relationship With Vince McMahon
Jerry McDevitt has been serving as WWE's lawyer and the personal attorney for Vince McMahon for 35 years. He recently spoke with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and delved into some of the more colorful stories of his time with the company.
McDevitt represented WWE in the mid-1990s when pro-wrestling was rocked by accusations of rampant steroid abuse. Jerry was asked if that particular case was a turning point in his and Vince's relationship.
"I represented Hulk Hogan in the first investigation," McDevitt opened. "Then I represented the company when they were criminally charged up in the Eastern District of New York in the early 1990s, which is really where the relationship kind of cemented because they went through 18 months of an ordeal, unlike anything I'd ever seen. It was a real witch hunt. They were acquitted of all charges without even calling a witness. We just cross-examined the government's case. After that, my relationship with Vince and Linda McMahon became almost family-like."
Jerry McDevitt, who is a partner at the K&L Gates law firm in Pittsburgh, continued to explain his relationship with the McMahon family.
"Since then, me and my firm have done everything for them. It's not just litigation," McDevitt explained. "We do Vince's estate plan. We do his tax returns. We handle a bunch of trust work. We've established an estate planning device for him and his family. The litigation that I've had to do for him has been across the board on ever subject imaginable from defamation claims to defamation defense to copyright infringement to trademark infringement to litigation with the USA Network on whether we would be permitted to leave that network and take our programing to other places, to helping Vince set up the XFL Football League, not once but twice. The WWE through the next 30 years became such a big part of the DNA of my law firm."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for the transcription.