Meet Jake
I am a Senior Associate and founding member of the Sports & Entertainment team at Lawrence Stephens. I act for clients on both contentious and non-contentious matters.
I act on high-profile matters within sport and my calm, direct and focused approach coupled with my strong commercial background and experience working with key stakeholders across the global sporting industry enables me to communicate and distill complex legal matters into practical advice in an engaging, accessible and actionable way.
I specialise in advising clients on commercial, image rights, employment, complex regulatory and cross-border matters in addition to acting for clients in disputes before The Football Association (FA), FIFA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Given the international nature of my work, I frequently collaborate with colleagues from a variety of different countries, jurisdictions and backgrounds.
I am passionate about ensuring that costs are not a barrier to receiving top legal advice and access to justice and I regularly provide pro bono assistance to young athletes and entrepreneurs. Additionally, I have been a member of the American Bar Association’s Military Pro Bono Project since qualifying as a lawyer and have been appointed to the Sport Resolutions Pro Bono Service.
Experience highlights
- Representing clients in dozens of successful disputes before the FA (Rule K Arbitration and Contractual Disputes Tribunal), FIFA (Players’ Status Chamber and Dispute Resolution Chamber), the Court of Arbitration for Sport and other sporting and commercial arbitration bodies
- Advising a client on a record-breaking commercial sponsorship deal within women’s football
- Negotiating a precedent-setting employment contract on behalf of a men’s footballer client
- Advising players and agents on a wide range of issues relating to domestic and international transfers
- Advising players, families and football clubs on issues pertaining to international transfers of minor players
- Supporting the Professional Footballers Association (PFA) in negotiations with The FA in relation to benefits for the England women’s national team
- Supporting the PFA in negotiations with The FA in relation to the standard employment contract for women’s professional footballers
- Representing a client on a successful discrimination, abuse and harassment claim opposite one of the largest football entities in the world
- Advising a brand client on a multi-million pound sponsorship deal with a prominent Formula 1 team
- Advising athletes on their image rights, commercial opportunities and sponsorships
- Advising Premier League and Championship football clubs on commercial sponsorships
- Advising boxers on their promotional agreements and management agreements
- Advising multiple dual-national footballers and collaborated with national associations to facilitate the players’ decisions to make the 'one-time switch' to play for different national teams
- Negotiating and drafting complex agreements involving parties in multiple jurisdictions and requiring expertise in both EPPP and NCAA regulatory compliance for clients with Major League Soccer clubs, Premier League and EFL clubs operating Category 1 and Category 2 academies and NCAA colleges and universities
- Drafting services contracts on behalf of clients engaged with Premier League and EFL football clubs
- Advising athlete clients on reputation management issues
- Advising a UK client on establishing a US corporate headquarters
- Leading the due diligence team of a prospective bidder of a top-level football club
- Advising football clubs, agents and players on successfully securing Governing Body Endorsements from The FA
