Joel Litvin spent 27 years with the NBA, including as President, League Operations from 2006-2015. From 2000-2006 he served as the league’s General Counsel.

As President, League Operations, Litvin was in charge of numerous areas of the NBA’s business, including legal affairs, collective bargaining, basketball operations, security, social responsibility, and player development. He ran the league’s approval process for team transactions such as sales, relocations, financings and new arenas and served as the chief liaison between the league and the NBA Board of Governors on a wide range of business, competition, and governance issues.

After leaving the NBA, Litvin has worked as a sports consultant, including for the ATP, the XFL, the Crown League, G2 Strategic, FutureSports, and Joseph Tsai, in connection with his successful bid for the Brooklyn Nets. In 2024, he served as an expert witness in an arbitration over the ownership and control of the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Litvin is also the co-founder, treasurer and a director of the Animal Defense Partnership, a nonprofit that provides free legal services to animal protection and plant-based eating charities. 

Litvin has taught the Business of Professional Sports Leagues and Franchises in the Columbia Sports Management program since 2018. Prior to that, he served as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Penn State Law School and as a Professor in the Master of Sports Law program at Instituto Superior de Derecho y Economia. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Las Vegas Sphere and, prior to that, Madison Square Garden Networks. He also serves on the Board of Philadelphia Youth Basketball and previously served on the boards of Hunger Free America, USA Climbing, and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Litvin has an undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a law degree from NYU, where he was a member of the law review.