Joey Nero is a seasoned negotiator with extensive experience handling complex, high-stakes matters in the sports, labor, corporate, and insurance industries. He joined KDG Legal in 2023 after ten years as a professional baseball executive, including three seasons with the Cleveland Guardians and seven seasons with the Miami Marlins, where he most recently served as Assistant Director of Baseball Operations.

In that role, Nero led contract negotiations, salary arbitration strategy, payroll planning, and player personnel decisions, while also managing the organization’s advance scouting and video departments. His background negotiating multimillion-dollar player deals under pressure now informs his legal practice, where he advises clients in corporate mergers and acquisitions, insurance disputes, and sophisticated estate and business succession planning.

Nero also serves as a Senior Advisor to Grand Central Sports and is a MLBPA Certified Minor League Agent. In that role, he continues to negotiate high-value player and endorsement deals—securing record-setting arbitration settlements for professional players and record-breaking NIL deals for collegiate athletes. His work at Grand Central reflects his deep understanding of the business of sports and ability to advocate for athletes at every level.

A Cleveland native, Nero earned his J.D. from Capital University Law School in 2015, where he was President of the Sports and Entertainment Law Association and completed concentrations in Environmental Law and Energy Law & Policy. He received his B.Ed. from The Ohio State University in 2012 and is a graduate of Padua Franciscan High School (2009). He previously served as a legal extern for Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor of the Supreme Court of Ohio and for the Ohio House of Representatives, and worked as a sports marketing consultant for Ohio State’s Athletic Department.

At KDG, Nero’s practice focuses on estate and trust planning, particularly matters involving real estate, tax, and corporate ownership. He is actively developing a Sports and Entertainment Law practice within the firm to serve athletes, entertainers, and content creators across a range of legal needs.

Nero’s family has been a part of the Cleveland estate and funeral planning community since 1930, when his great-grandparents founded Vito-Nero Funeral Home in Garfield Heights—now in its fourth generation of family ownership.

In addition to his legal work, Nero is an adjunct professor of Sports Law in the Mike Cleary Sports Leadership Program at John Carroll University. He is a member of the American Bar Association, the Ohio State Bar Association, and the Estate Planning Council of Cleveland.