Richard Yarmuth, Attorney for Howard Schultz

Why he's fighting: Yarmuth is no stranger to legal fights in sports. He's taken on the Mariners as well as the American League.

And won.

A Columbia Law School graduate who has practiced in Seattle since 1972, Yarmuth helped represent Washington and King County in a 1976 antitrust suit against the American League. Their victory brought the expansion Mariners to Seattle.

A decade later, he represented the county in a suit that forced the Mariners to honor their Kingdome lease and blocked the team from leaving town. He then worked on a committee along with City of Seattle attorney Slade Gorton that identified Nintendo as a potential buyer, then convinced the Japanese company to purchase the Mariners and keep them in Seattle.