Debbie Shon

 Debbie Leilani Shon is a distinguished legal and business strategist with deep expertise in dispute resolution and arbitration in the sports, entertainment, finance, and international trade sectors. Throughout her career, she has been a trusted advisor to athletes, executives, and organizations, guiding them through complex commercial, regulatory, political, and governance challenges while shaping policies involving athlete representation, privacy, and compliance in a rapidly evolving sports landscape.

As Chief Legal & Strategy Officer at USA Gymnastics, Shon played an important role in strengthening governance, compliance, and dispute resolution frameworks, ensuring athlete health and safety remained at the core of the organization. In addition to serving as Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer and Corporate Secretary, she oversaw Safe Sport structures, litigation strategy, sponsorship negotiations, media rights, and international regulatory affairs. Her leadership was instrumental in developing policies for grievance resolution, risk management, and ethical oversight, as well as restructuring arbitration and appeals processes to enhance fairness and transparency for athletes and stakeholders. Shon’s international policy and political acumen further solidified domestic and global alliances, including her appointment to an international task force for the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique, where she contributed to the revision of governing statutes and election protocols, and the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) for whom she served on working groups to implement the Equal Pay for Team USA Act and the revised USOPC Bylaws and policies.

Shon’s expertise in dispute settlement and regulatory enforcement spans a career that includes high-stakes domestic and international commercial litigation, arbitration, and mediation. As a partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, she specialized in resolving commercial, trade, and sports-related disputes, advising athletes, entertainers, corporate clients, trade guilds and organizations, and governing bodies on regulatory actions concerning AI, ADS and gaming technologies, commercial rights, data security and privacy rights (GDPR, CCPA), intellectual property rights, cyber espionage and trade secrets, enforcement actions, economic sanctions (OFAC, EAR, IEEPA, ITAR), FCPA, CFIUS, compliance matters, and negotiated settlements.

Her experience extends across both the Executive and Legislative branches of government, where she has played a critical role in policy negotiation, regulatory disputes, and stakeholder mediation. She began her career as Legislative Director for the Dean and Founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, later serving as Assistant U.S. Trade Representative, where she managed the private sector and state and local government elected officials on global trade negotiations and dispute resolution mechanisms for international trade agreements. She has also advised international organizations including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and USAID on governance, trade compliance, and dispute settlement strategies. Shon also advised clients with regard to the status of Congressional deliberations and viability of various legislative and agency initiatives in the evolving status of NIL in sports and the impact of ongoing litigation, settlements, and regulatory challenges. 

Shon is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and the University of Southern California. A dedicated advocate for diversity and access to justice, she has served on the Smithsonian National Board and as Chair of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Board of Advisors. She also was a Fellow of the Aspen Institute and the prestigious American Society of International Law.  Shon remains an active Board Co-Chair of the Friends of the National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture and Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.