1. Desh, could you tell us a little about your professional journey leading into your current position?
My education and career path have actually been somewhat unorthodox. I was raised as a student-athlete, so my formative years so to speak were spent balancing my academics with my tennis career. A true Delhi-ite, I am a product of Modern School Barakhamba Road, and I then pursued my undergraduate degree at St. Stephen’s College from where I graduated in Economics Honors in 1999. I was also playing tennis at the national level, and captained my school, college and university teams. A national finalist in under-18 singles, and consistently ranked in the top 5 in India and Canada as a junior, I pursued my second undergraduate degree in the U.S. at the University of Iowa on a tennis scholarship. On completing that and being a glutton for punishment I decided to extend my education by pursuing law school at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. In the mid-2000’s I spent some time at IMG in Philadelphia, and worked closely with sports marketing and management firms in Canada and India. Shortly after getting my license to practice law from the state of New York, I returned to India in 2006 to get some further experience in the sports marketing and management domain. I felt that a multi-faceted sports management firm with clearly demarcated verticals was likely to be successful, especially if qualified player-agents were brought into the fold, along with expertise in sports law. In 2007 I was a member of the core group that established a sports management firm (Orient Sports Management) to represent and manage athletes in emerging sports. Despite the fact that we represented some of the outstanding tennis and table tennis players of our generation, the Indian sports domain at that juncture was even more disorganized than it is today and unable to support a multitude of athletes across sports from a sponsorship or opportunity perspective. I think in hindsight I might have entered the business of sports domain a couple of years too soon, but at that time I felt it was on the cusp of metamorphosing into something far more organized and professional than actually transpired.
I did realise, however, that the sports law practice area in India revolved around contracts, and constructing contracts with sports specific clauses and innovations. Representing players or national sports federations for their legal work was unlikely to be the next avenue for growth in the sports law domain. So, in the pre-IPL days the only possible viable opportunities in the sports law domain were to represent established corporate entities for their sports-specific legal requirements, and to pitch to and eventually represent international professional sports leagues looking to make their foray into India. So, as soon as I received my license to practice law in India, I had the good fortune of interviewing at J. Sagar Associates, where Jyoti Sagar (the Founder Partner) was two steps ahead of me with his vision, and suggested a focus on developing the sports practice. This was in February 2009, and the rest as they say is history.
I believe my interest in specializing solely in sports law was a blend of my passion and serendipity, to be perfectly honest! More than anything else, I chose sports law as a career path for two reasons: firstly, I felt that this practice area was ripe with opportunity in India for anyone with an appetite for risk, and a reasonable inkling of the gestation period; and secondly, I don’t think I could fathom a career path independent from sports in any capacity, so for me this was a natural progression. And when at JSA I was given a chance to focus on my area of expertise and passion and combine it with my legal education, it was an opportunity I grasped gratefully. I was fortunate in that I did my JD from the U.S. in 2005, and was thus able to tailor my legal education towards core courses that assisted my future career path. I spent significant time at sports management firms in the U.S. as well as in India, and I realized that India’s unique industry positioning enabled a diverse sports law practice even for a bulge bracket corporate law firm. Ironically, the sports industry, although lucrative, is only now emerging in terms of its evolutionary progress.
2. What were your motivating factors in choosing a career specialising in sports law?
Establishing a Sports law practice at JSA has been a learning experience. We have faced unforeseen challenges and obstacles in gaining traction despite our positioning as a national law firm. That being said, we have over the last couple of years built a practice around anchor clients who are involved with some of the most exciting yet at the same time Greenfield projects in a jurisdiction where the business of sports is a concept as recent as 2008, circa IPL I. It helps that my practice area has been given the support and patience to allow it to grow, and today we represent clients as prestigious as Hero MotoCorp, and the National Basketball Association (for its India initiative).
3. Can you please describe some of the interesting legal issues you have encountered?
Unfortunately, attorney-client confidentiality limits my ability to divulge much, but a few instances, in general, definitely stand out. The Indian sports domain is unique because it is driven by amateur sports. Therefore, the national sports federations take centerstage, and as India becomes a focal point for global sports events and excellence, there are acclimatisation issues along with compliances that lead to contractual innovations and step-by-step solutions on an ongoing basis. Events of Force Majeure, the de-recognition of national federations, the cancellation or suspension of events, introducing the concept of ambush marketing, conditions precedent based on the dynamic and unique landscape of Indian sports, these are all daily challenges that we face in our sports practice area. This is why it’s as important to have expertise and industry knowledge from a sports landscape and commercial standpoint, as it is to have the requisite legal skills to be able to draft, negotiate or review sports-specific agreements.
As the legal counsels for our clients in the sports domain, we are required to be two steps ahead of any potential calamitous turn of events, and protect our clients from any unforeseen eventuality. And, while this is a new and exciting challenge on a daily basis, the uniqueness and the rapidly evolving domain also makes it difficult to set consistent precedents and templates for our client-specific agreements.
4. What does your current role at J Sagar Associates entail? What is the size and structure of your team?
I focus specifically on the sports practice area, and with the support of my colleagues at JSA, I look after our clients in the sports domain. The advantage of being a part of an organization such as 'JSA';. is that I have the support of outstanding attorneys across the legal practice area domains. So, depending on the nature of the mandate and its complexity I can turn to my colleagues and seek their assistance in practice areas as diverse as corporate commercial, labour, competition, intellectual property rights and even indirect taxation. Sports law being a basket of legal practice areas, this support system is invaluable. So to answer your question, I would say that the diverse suite of clients that we represent in the Sports domain are serviced by the interplay of different teams at JSA, with my sports- specific inputs and industry experience allowing me to interface with and act as the point of contact for our sports-specific clients.
5. As an experienced sports lawyer, how do you think the field has changed in the last five years? As a student, did you expect these fields to experience such levels of growth?
I think the real changes have begun in the post-IPL era, more from a spill-over standpoint than anything else. I think in 2008 the term ‘business of sports’ was coined in India and actually began to be understood by the diverse stakeholders in this industry. The focus on a more comprehensive legal arrangement was a natural corollary of the exponential increase in investment in sports endorsements and sponsorships. This was due as much to
the fact that Indian entities were contracting with international bodies and entities who already had established legal practices and comprehensive contracts. So, with the advent of comprehensive and descriptive long-form contracts, there has been a sudden surge in demand for specialist lawyers in the sports domain. I’d say that the sports law practice has only reached about 20% of its potential, and the next five years will see the real growth as the supply of professional sports law services matches the demand from a growing base of clients who are now sophisticated and savvy enough to understand that verbal understandings don’t usually hold up in a court of law from an enforceability stand-point. This is a positive development for all the stakeholders across the board.
6. Finally Desh, would you have any advice for young lawyers who aspire to pursue a career path such as your own?
For young lawyers who have an affinity for practicing sports law, I would first of all recommend spending a couple of years in a structured law firm environment so as to gain outstanding drafting, negotiation and research skills. It’s a dynamic and vibrant domain, and it’s only going to grow from an opportunity standpoint. Contracts are the lifeblood of sports law practices, and a strong foundation in this would go a long way in building the ideal skill set for a multi-faceted individual with crossover ability between sports management and sports law. The sector is very young, so there is plenty of time to acquire strong legal skill-sets and experience, and then make the crossover to sports law, if that’s where their passion lies.
- Log in to post comments