Maritime lawyer has second job as Miami Heat dancer and team captain

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Careers

Maritime lawyer has second job as Miami Heat dancer and team captain

By Debra Cassens Weiss

August 12, 2025, 2:26 pm CDT

Chelsea Varsaci, a lawyer and a member of the Miami Heat dance team. (Photo by Cristina Sullivan/The Miami Heat)

Law firm associate Chelsea Varsaci has a professional and a performance life, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Varsaci, 32, spends daytime as a maritime associate at Foreman Friedman in Miami, a job that involves time in court, as well as the office. In the evening, she takes to the basketball court as a dancer and a dance captain for the NBA’s Miami Heat.

The Miami Herald has the story, republished in the Tampa Bay Times.

“When I’m at work, I’m at work. I’m 100% attorney Chelsea reporting for duty,” Varsaci told the newspaper. “Towards the end of the day, if I have games or practice, that’s when I’ll start switching and become that Heat dancer.”

Law firm associate Chelsea Varsaci (far left) and the Miami Heat dancers in 2023 at an NBA basketball second-round playoff series between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks. (Photo by Wilfredo Lee/The Associated Press)

Varsaci is a 2019 graduate of the St. Thomas University College of Law in Miami Gardens, Florida. She has been dancing with the Miami Heat for nine seasons. Before that, she performed for a theme park; an arena football team; and the Miami Dolphins, working as a cheerleader instead of a dancer for the NFL team.

Varsaci told the Miami Herald that she was “raised to have as many paths as you wanted, make your life limitless.” In high school, she pursued gymnastics and Irish step dancing. She started dancing professionally in college.

Varsaci said dancing enhances her skills as lawyer.

“The qualities of an NBA dancer, being able to dance in front of thousands of people, I have a presence that I can now bring into the legal field,” she told the Miami Herald. “I know what I can bring to the table.”

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