“Is that still the case under the law? If it’s still a case that a legal matter would be difficult, are the atmospherics in 2021 — after what we saw in 2020, the uprising against systemic racism in this country — different? "Maybe it wouldn’t win in court, but maybe you have enough of a claim to get into court and force conversations and to force settlements. I don’t know what the answer is, but I know we must re-assess the premise that legal action wouldn’t work.” GSI’s panel included Carl Douglas, who worked under Cochran on the O.J. Simpson defense team and is president of Douglas/Hicks Law; and Melissa Woods, a partner at Cohen Weiss and Simon who specializes in labor and employment law. In weighing the legal possibilities of an NFL diversity case, they seemed to agree that bringing individual cases against individual teams (a USA TODAY Sports study identified seven franchises that have never had a person of color as coach) might stand a better chance than a case against the league at large.