South East’s Thomas Eggar launches sports group

9 September 2008

South East firm Thomas Eggar has launched a specialist sports law practice.

The private client side of the team will be headed up by partner Nicola Plant, while partner Richard Hastings will head the commercial sports offering.

Thomas Eggar managing partner Tony Edwards said: “We’ve done a lot of work for members of the England football team and for certain owners of British football clubs.

“When you put it all together it comes to £1m or £1.5m in fees so it makes sense to actually wrap this around a sports unit.”

Nicola Plant added: “Really what we identified was that there were various football clubs and professionals from the footballing and cricketing world we were acting for. But we realised that on a commercial and private client basis, we were not necessarily acting in a coordinated way.

“It’s definitely the way forward in legal services. Gone are the times when [departments] can act independently of each other.”

The new sports group will straddle the following departments: private client, personal tax, wealth and estate planning, family and matrimonial, corporate finance, commercial, intellectual property, dispute resolution, employment and property.

Football deals the firm was involved in in the past 18 months include acting acted for Serbian tycoon Milan Mandaric on his takeover of Leicester City Football Club in February 2007.