NFL Agent Schaffer Sues Youth Hockey Group Over ‘Volunteer’ Legal Work
The tense culmination of pro sports agent Peter Schaffer’s “volunteer” job as general counsel for Colorado’s youth hockey governing body has taken another contentious turn.
The Denver-based Schaffer, who has represented a number of NFL stars, is now suing the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association for breach of contract, contending the nonprofit organization owes him more than $38,000 for legal work he did on its behalf.
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Schaffer is pursuing his claim even though both he and CAHA have long suggested that he was working as the association’s counsel pro bono. Some of this work, as Sportico previously reported, included aggressive actions by Schaffer on behalf of CAHA’s former executive committee, which were criticized as being retaliatory and called out by USA Hockey.
Subsequently, USA Hockey moved to implement new oversight measures for its Colorado affiliate, which included commissioning an outside forensic audit of CAHA’s books. On May 2, each of the members of CAHA’s executive committee, including longtime president Randy Kanai, were voted out by its members.
A week later, the new executive committee fired Schaffer, ultimately replacing him with another general counsel. Representing himself pro se, Schaffer filed suit last week in Colorado state court, accusing CAHA of breach of contract and unjust enrichment. In his lawsuit, he claimed that he and Kanai, in light of the association’s increasing demands on his time, had struck an agreement in 2021 that permitted him to begin billing the organization at what Schaffer referred to as his “discounted family rate.”
In a phone interview last week, Schaffer argued there was nothing inappropriate or hypocritical about his efforts to recoup a five-figure sum from CAHA, nor was it a problem that he and Kanai never put their arrangement in writing.
“We asked Mr. Schaffer to provide to us any written agreement or engagement letter, and he has been unable to do so,” said Brian Smith, who replaced Kanai as board president. “CAHA has no record of him receiving any payments over at least the last six years.”
While repeatedly questioning how a reporter had learned of his lawsuit, Schaffer declared Smith and the other members of the executive committee as “crooks” and “unethical,” and claimed that they had already violated Colorado law in their response to Kanai’s request for executive committee meeting minutes. Had he not been terminated, Schaffer insisted, he would have quit on his own so as “not to be party to any group that would violate state law.”
He further criticized the new leadership hiding their decision-making process—including the vote to fire him—under the veil of private executive committee meetings, something he said would never happen “on my watch.”
“This is a not-for-profit public corporation, what are we doing here?” Schaffer said. “What are we worried about? We are not invading Normandy. If you think somebody is a bad person and someone is not doing their job, then say it and we can vote on it.”
Schaffer—who is in good standing with the Colorado bar—is lodging similar of criticisms against the new regime that had been leveled against the previous one: that it operates undemocratically and without transparency nor fear of retaliation.
Earlier this year, in his role as CAHA’s counsel, Schaffer came under fire for his attempt to investigate Brooke Wilfley, the owner of Aces Hockey Academy, for allegedly defaming Kanai and the other executive committee members.
In a text message to Sportico, Schaffer also suggested that there was something implicitly damning in CAHA’s choice of attorney to defend itself against his lawsuit, Thomas Krysa. In 2020, Krysa represented scandal-ridden former Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder in an ex parte petition he had filed seeking discovery against Schaffer, which related to a defamation lawsuit Snyder previously filed in India.
“Given the ongoing and baseless litigation filed by Mr. Schaffer against CAHA to collect attorney’s fees from a charitable organization for whom he provided pro bono legal services, we can only state we wholly disagree with Mr. Schaffer’s statements,” Smith said in a statement. “We will not litigate this matter in the press as Mr. Schaffer seeks to do but will instead address the facts through the legal process.”
In an interview earlier this year, Schaffer had extolled himself as the only person involved with CAHA “who derives no revenue from hockey.” As to why he dedicated his free time to the organization, Schaffer had said: “I think it is important in this world to give back to organizations and entities and sports and activities that have been good to you.”
Schaffer, in various forums, had said he was as an independent and unbiased voice within Colorado youth hockey because he has no personal or financial ties to CAHA or its leadership.
“I have zero dogs in any hockey hunt as I have no children currently playing hockey or any affiliation with any organization,” Schaffer said at a meeting that preceded the May 2 board vote. “I have zero conflicts of interest.”
When asked recently how those comments squared with his current expectations to be paid for legal work, Schaffer explained that he meant that he was not personally invested in any CAHA team. As recently as December, Kanai sent out an email in which he described Schaffer as having “served on a volunteer basis as CAHA’s General Counsel for years,” according to a copy of the message obtained by Sportico.
Schaffer says he has no problem with the new executive committee deciding to hire a new general counsel, but that he is still entitled to be paid.
“I worked for a lot of hours for this organization,” said Schaffer. “The fact that the new president and vice president want to go in a different direction, they are entitled to do that. I just called them out and said they were violating Colorado law and I assumed I would be fired. That’s fine. But that doesn’t mean they can get away from paying me, because the other president and previous regime agreed to pay me.”
When asked why he hadn’t submitted any invoices to Kanai in the two-plus years between when they agreed Schaffer would bill and when Kanai was voted off the executive committee, Schaffer suggested that he has always had a casual custom of invoicing.
“I am a solo practitioner,” said Schaffer. “Even with my agency practice, I don’t bill players every week like other agents do. I send a bill once a year, sometimes I don’t even send bills out.”
For example, in the case of one of his clients, Joe Thomas, who was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame this week, Schaffer said he has submitted a single invoice in the course of their professional relationship.
In his lawsuit, Schaffer refers to having billed CAHA for $34,735.81 in 2015, in exchange for work he had done defending the organization in a lawsuit. Kanai, in a phone interview, backed up Schaffer’s assertion that they two had struck a verbal agreement in 2021. Both said they did not memorialize the paid work in an agreement or engagement letter because this is not required in Colorado for longstanding, attorney-client relationships. While engagement letters are, in general, not mandatory, the Colorado Supreme Court’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel advises its lawyers to “develop a strong engagement letter” with their clients that “includes a discussion of fees.”
When pressed about why he didn’t put the billing arrangement for the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in writing, Kanai said he and Schaffer had by then already “built a level of trust.”
CAHA’s publicly available tax returns show legal fees of $45,782 in the fiscal year ending in 2017 and $25,875 reported legal fees in FY18, but reported nothing since then. The returns do not specify which attorneys were paid.
Smith said CAHA asked to take the legal-fee dispute to arbitration, but that Schaffer rebuffed the request prior to filing suit on July 11. (“That’s irrelevant,” Schaffer texted, when asked to confirm. “As the plaintiff, I can select the forum.”)
Meanwhile, a USA Hockey spokesperson said its outside forensic audit of CAHA is still in the information-gathering stage.
On Jan. 23, Schaffer sent a written “notice of spoliation and investigation” to various parties, including Wilfley of Aces Hockey Academy, which had been actively pushing for greater transparency from the organization’s leadership. In the notice, Schaffer claimed to be probing “alleged libelous and slanderous statement(s)” made against the CAHA executive committee.
Schaffer later sent Aces Hockey Academy emails demanding Wilfley’s electronic devices, under the threat of disciplinary procedures, which Aces’ attorney rebuffed while calling an act of retaliation.
USA Hockey’s general counsel, Casey Jorgensen, took Schaffer to task for this in a Feb. 14 letter he sent to Kanai.
“Without any supported basis for those allegations, or any authority cited to support CAHA’s request for documents,” Jorgensen wrote, “we do not see any legitimate basis for CAHA to commence disciplinary procedures against a party that does not comply with CAHA’s demands.”
