Huw Roberts

As an Of Counsel in our Sports Group in London, I'm a regulatory and dispute resolution specialist with over 15 years' experience working for some of the biggest names in the global sports market.

I specialise in regulatory and disciplinary work for national and international federations and other organisations in the global sports community. I worked for many years as Legal Counsel to World Athletics (formerly, the International Association of Athletics Federations) and, since joining our firm in 2015, I've continued to assist the sport in a number of different areas.

In 2015-2016, I advised on a ground-breaking programme of wide-ranging governance reform, including re-drafting their constitution and establishing an independent Athletics Integrity Unit and Disciplinary Tribunal. Four years on, the reforms have been widely praised and World Athletics and the Athletics Integrity Unit are now seen as a benchmark of governance best practice within the international sporting community. As a result of my governance work for World Athletics, I was asked to sit as an expert advising the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on its own governance reform programme with particular focus on introducing greater independence to the organisation's decision making functions.

Good governance is now considered an imperative if sport is to survive in what is becoming an increasingly challenging economic environment. Having spent many years of my career working in-house in sport, I feel uniquely placed to understand the needs of our clients, the challenges they face in implementing governance reform and, crucially, what it takes to ensure that any reforms put in place have a lasting impact. I still advise the Athletics Integrity Unit on a full-time basis and have recently assisted the firm in advising on the implementation of similar structures in other sports.

Over the years, I have sat on a number of expert commissions and working groups established by World Athletics, the International Olympic Committee, WADA, the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF), Sport Accord, the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), UK Sport and London 2012.