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When Sergio Quiñones laces up his Air Jordan 1s in the morning, he’s already a step ahead. The associate general counsel for legal innovation at Nike ties up his right shoe and then moves to his left, a prosthetic leg created to replace the foot he had amputated when he was just eleven months old.
“I’ve been learning to adapt before I even remember it,” Quiñones explains. “My mother, this incredible person in my life, always called me her ‘campeon,’ her champion. I’ve tried to do that for others as my career and life have progressed.”
Born in Chihuahua, Mexico, Quiñones immigrated to the United States with his family when he was three. Neither he nor his parents spoke English, and they always worried about the prospect of deportation. (Now that they’re naturalized citizens, this is no longer a risk.) Yet through the difficulties Quiñones faced, he’s become the kind of man, lawyer, husband, and father that his parents can be proud of.
Three years ago, Quiñones would never have imagined himself as in-house counsel at Nike. He had always wanted to work in sports, but while his previous role was in-house at another Fortune 500 company, it wasn’t even tangentially sports related.
Fortunately, Quiñones’s career took a turn when he put early advice from a sports attorney mentor to work.
“Early in my career, I was working in real estate law, but I networked with a successful in-house attorney,” Quiñones remembers. “She told me that if I wanted to be a good sports attorney, I should just focus on being a good attorney first and foremost. I took that to heart.”
In his previous role, Quiñones excelled in optimizing and innovating how the legal team operated with the rest of the company’s stakeholders. It was work he enjoyed, and, ultimately, it was the kind of expertise Nike was seeking out.
One day, Quiñones was scrolling through Instagram and came across a post from one of his favorite architecture firms, which had completed the LeBron James Innovation Center at Nike World Headquarters. The lawyer was so impressed by the build that he searched for available jobs at Nike. There was one: the role he’s in right now.
There was one problem. The role required five years of experience. Quiñones only had three.
He applied anyway. What mattered most, Quiñones says, is that in every interview, he was completely himself.
“That interview process taught me a lot about being my authentic self,” the lawyer says. “Over the years, I’ve learned to trust my instincts, but I could still be a bit guarded about the person I was presenting to the world. I let my guard down, and I’m glad I did.”
At Nike, Quiñones has leaned into his authentic self. He works with various Nike legal teams to optimize their own contracting processes and find new ways to innovate. Quiñones has learned the contracting process of a team that supports one of Nike’s APLA countries to aid the team, learn what’s important to them, and how to help them best help Nike. Quiñones presented to senior Nike leadership about the collaboration, and the framework he and his team developed might be rolled out to other APLA Nike legal teams.
While Nike is a global brand, it’s still easy to feel isolated as a Latino in law. Even as the Latino population continues to grow, in-house numbers aren’t budging much. But Quiñones says he’s doing his best to be his full self at work, teaching others about mariachi music or holidays he holds close to his heart. He’s also taking younger attorneys under his wing to let them know the importance of being themselves.
“I still mentor students in the sports law program at Marquette,” Quiñones explains. “One of my students was Black, and I remember we were having a hard time connecting. Our interactions were so formal. One day I flat-out told him I felt like we weren’t being our authentic selves. I’m Latino, I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I like to bring positive energy. ‘Corporate America’ often sands down those edges we have that make us who we are. But if we’re not being authentic, we’re not really shining.”
More than any single emotion, what radiates the most from Quiñones is gratitude. He exudes gratitude for a mother who sold clothes to pay for his first prosthetic leg, for a company that was willing to let the attorney grow on the job, for a wife he’s truly a partner with and for a son he wants to raise with the same kind of work ethic his mother instilled in him.
“We are like this because we saw our parents work so hard,” Quiñones says.
Quiñones leaves an impression, and you know the challenges he’s faced down have resulted in more than just a good attorney. He’s a person you’re grateful to have met. He’s a person you hope to speak to again.
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