Jill Pilgrim is Managing Attorney with Pilgrim & Associates Arbitration, Law & Mediation LLC, based in New York City, USA. Her diverse career experience includes decades working in the legal, sports, business, and corporate environments, in a variety of legal and business capacities. She began her career as a tax and corporate attorney at prestigious New York City law firms, before going in-house as general counsel of USA Track & Field and the Ladies Professional Golf Association, respectively. Over the course of her career, she has served in legal, governance and business affairs leadership roles.

Pilgrim has also been retained by litigation counsel and insurance providers as an expert witness on sports administration and governance issues.

Pilgrim has represented parties, individually and as part of a legal team, in sports and commercial arbitration matters. On the other side of the dispute resolution table, she has a long history of involvement as a neutral in sports dispute resolution and integrity issues, having served as an arbitrator for doping cases within Olympic sport, as an independent hearing officer for the New York State Gaming Commission, and on the Division I National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Committee on Infractions. In March 2023, she was appointed an Appeals Arbitrator for the Policy & Program on Substances of Abuse and the Policy on Performance-Enhancing Substances Arbitrator for the NFL Management Council and the NFL Players Association (“NFL Drug Policies”). In late 2023, Pilgrim was elevated to Notice Arbitrator for the NFL Drug Policies.

In April 2024, Pilgrim was appointed by New York State Chief Judge Rowan Wilson to the NYS Alternative Dispute Resolution Advisory Committee.

Pilgrim is a member of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics (KCIA), as well as being on the KCIA’s Educational Mission and College Athlete Issues Committee and Task Force on Racial Equity. She is also a member of the board of directors of the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), the Monaco-based organization that monitors and prosecutes integrity infractions for the sport of Track & Field – Athletics – worldwide.

On June 1, 2024, Pilgrim began her term as Chair of the Dispute Resolution Section of the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA). She also serves as Co-Chair of the Sports Committee of NYSBA’s Entertainment, Arts & Sports Law Section.

Professor Pilgrim teaches sports arbitration at Columbia Law School, in New York City, USA.