Senior Vice President and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel
National Basketball Association
Ayala Deutsch is Senior Vice President and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel, responsible for overseeing the acquisition, protection and enforcement throughout the world of intellectual property rights belonging to the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, the NBA Development League, and their teams.

Her specialties include trademark law, copyright law and Internet law. Deutsch joined NBA Properties in January 1998 and was named to her current position in October 2005.

Prior to joining the NBA, Deutsch was an associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York, where she specialized in intellectual property litigation and arbitration.

Deutsch formerly served on the Board of Directors of the International Trademark Association and as an Adjunct Professor of sports law at Cardozo School of Law, and currently co-chairs the New York State Bar Association Committee on Sports Law.

Deutsch graduated cum laude from Queens College in 1986 and received her J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1989.