Our firm can provide support in the framework of negotiations and drafting contracts for the major professional sports (trade contracts, contracts creating partnerships with local governments, patronage and sponsorship contracts).
We can also help set up the legal framework of your sports association. We can also provide assistance in managing your brands (for example, contracting licenses).
In addition, we provide counsel to professional athletes as they manage their image, and we defend their rights and the rights of sports clubs in the event they are involved in legal disputes, before national and international courts, before the Sports Arbitration Tribunal, the AFLD, or administrative jurisdictions.
We also provide assistance to players in the sporting world during conciliation procedures before the French National Olympic and Sporting Committee (CNOSF, in French).
Our clients are sports organizations, athletes, and clients from the world of sports associations. We can also represent announcers and local governments.
Our firm has been working in the field of sport's law since 1999.
Blandine Poidevin and Viviane Gelles are co-authors of the practical dictionary of sport's law, published in 2011 by Editions Territorial, and updated twice a year.
These days, sports are a domain of economic activity in their own right, and they are highly developed and professionalized. As a result, the various actors involved in this sector can be confronted by a number of different types of issues, disputes, and conflicts pertaining to high level and professional sports, as well as sports associations and groups. This has led to the emergence of a specific legal specialty in the area of sport's law, practiced by specialists with the proper legal competencies to effectively represent various actors in this field as well as high level and professional athletes, federations, syndicates, etc. Such an expert is called a sport's lawyer.
What is the role of a lawyer specializing in sport's law?
The sport's lawyer applies his or her professional legal competencies to the field of sports. The sport's lawyer works from a number of critical angles. Some services are wholly located within the legal sphere, such as providing information, assistance, representation, counsel, and protection. Other services however are accomplished wholly within the sport's field, while calling on the legal competencies of a professional practitioner.
The sport's lawyer will inform the various actors about the range of legal procedures that exist in the field of sport's law. He or she will also assist clients during the various activities that take place in the framework of their professional practice or which relate to it. The role of the sport's lawyer is also to protect his or her clients' interests throughout the execution of their professional activity. During legal procedures and in performing certain acts, the lawyer will represent clients through a mandate arranged with them.
Outside of the judicial sphere, the lawyer specialized in the field of sports can also provide services in which his or her legal competencies will guarantee better results. In particular, he or she will be instrumental in sports agent services. In his or her role as agent, the lawyer will have express legal and regulatory authorization. This will mean the lawyer won't need an agent license, but he or she will be held to compliance with the same rules of practice and transparency as licensed agents.
10. Writing or negotiation of sports sponsorship contracts, and more.