Sports lawyers head up new practice

Leeds-based Frontrow Legal is being led by Richard Cramer and Clive Lawrence, two of the country's best-known sports lawyers.

Mr Cramer has been a lawyer for 20 years, while Mr Lawrence has written a number of books about sports law and is also chairman of Audiences Yorkshire, the audience development agency for arts and culture in Yorkshire.

The practice, which is part of Leeds-based law firm Cohen Cramer, is being launched at an event which will question whether sportsmen and women are being placed at risk through commercial pressures.

Mr Lawrence said the practice was aimed at the sport, media and communications sector and "covers content for modern media culture, which begins with a live event, be it in sport, theatre, music or any other form...and then passes through recording and transmission in any form or medium, and beyond that into news, review and comment."

He added: "The purpose is to provide a full service including regulatory advice, business advice and conflict resolution advice to anyone involved in these activities, dealing with their rights, their obligations, their brands and their reputations, and advising them on every part of their business and activity.

"There is, we feel, a place for a practice that can offer that breadth of service with the range of experience we have from a base in Yorkshire."

FrontRow Legal is holding a breakfast seminar on Friday, May 7, at 7.30am at Leeds United's Elland Road stadium on the subject of "Spectacle versus Safety – Are the demands on modern sport to be spectacular compromising the safety of participants?"