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Brabners Chaffe Street sporting pedigree grows from strength to strength
15/09/2010

Leading law firm, Brabners Chaffe Street, has strengthened its internationally recognised sports law team with three appointments to the team: solicitors Sarah Davies, Stuart Ripley and Richard Craig.

Sarah Davies trained with the firm and joins the team on qualification this week. She combines her legal career with an active sports life. Sarah is a keen hockey player and has played for Derbyshire and the Midlands as well as playing for England at Junior International level. She has over 20 caps and has been captain of all of those teams at various stages including captaining England in a European Tournament. Sarah currently plays for Preston Ladies Hockey Club in the North League.

Stuart Ripley also qualifies into the sports team this week having trained with the firm. Stuart was a professional footballer for 18 years and played over 500 matches for Middlesbrough, Blackburn Rovers, Southampton, Sheffield Wednesday, Bolton Wanderers and Barnsley. He won the Premier League with Blackburn in 1994-95 season and has 2 England caps, 8 England U21 caps and 5 England Youth Caps. He retired in 2002 before returning to University to embark on a career in the law.

Stuart has recently been appointed to The FA Disciplinary Panel and will sit in adjudication on certain disciplinary issues that arise throughout the season (for example issues relating to on-pitch incidents (sendings off, crowd trouble etc), doping, safeguarding of minors, agent activity and Equality).

Richard Craig joined the sports team at the beginning of September from Barlow Lyde and Gilbert LLP in London, where he spent two years in their Commercial and Technology team. Richard also has particular experience in the areas of data protection and competition law. Richard comes with a good deal of practical sports experience being a keen footballer, enthusiastic snowboarder and persistent golfer.

The 16-strong sports team acts for a number of sporting associations and clubs including a significant number of the Premier League clubs, the PFA, the Rugby Football League, British Cycling, Association of European Professional Football Leagues, Commonwealth Games England and adidas and is arguably the largest dedicated team in the country.

Head of Sports Law at Brabners Chaffe Street, Maurice Watkins, said today, “The recruitment drive to strengthen further the team demonstrates our very real and long standing commitment to sports law and to the industry as a whole. We have seen a marked increase in demand for our specialist expertise and by strengthening the team we can ensure we have the appropriate resource to service client's requirements.”


For further information contact Deborah Ascott-Jones at Brabners Chaffe Street on 0151 600 3000

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