Couchman Harrington gets leg-up from the beautiful game to double in size

Wayne Rooney’s lawyers, the niche sports firm Couchman Harrington Associates, has recruited former Hammonds consultant Jon Higton to be head of broadcasting and media.

Higton worked with founding partners Nic Couchman and Dan Harrington at Townleys prior to its merger with Hammonds in 2001.

Higton and Townleys founder Steve Townley joined Hammonds on three-year fixed-term contracts and left when the contracts ended last month. Townley is now concentrating on his sports rights consultancy Active Rights Management.

Higton has also worked in-house at ITV. He worked on the TV contracts for the Rugby Union World Cup and has negotiated rights agreements for the FA Premier League, the FA Cup and the Cricket World Cup.

Couchman Harrington has doubled in size over the last year and now has 11 lawyers, many of whom were together at Townleys, which at its peak had around 25 lawyers.

“We’ve learnt from the things that Townleys did right and we have learnt from the things that Townleys didn’t get right,” commented Couchman.