The legal issues in sport are becoming more complex. Join an expert panel for truly expert guidance, including a former Olympian and AFL player, alongside leading barristers, and lawyers in sports law. Gain practical knowledge and insights into key legal issues like sex and gender in sport participation, safeguarding regimes, protection of reputation and defamation risks, advocacy in sports tribunals, and collective bargaining in sport.

Presenters

Ian Prendergast, Executive Director, Sports Advisory Partners Australia, Former Carlton Football Club Player
Ian is an experienced leader in the sporting industry and a qualified lawyer having completed his law degree at Monash University while playing 65 AFL games over 8 years for the Carlton Football Club. After finishing with Carlton as a player in 2006, Ian moved to Adelaide and worked for Griffin Hilditch Lawyers in mainly Commercial Litigation. While living in Adelaide for 2 years, Ian played for South Adelaide in the SANFL and established the SANFL Players’ Association. Ian then worked for Kelly Hazell Quill Lawyers back in Melbourne in Media Law and Dispute Resolution before moving into a role with the AFL Players’ Association (AFLPA. As General Manager of Player Relations at the AFLPA, Ian was primarily responsible for the industrial relations' area of the Players' Association, while providing advocacy and leadership support across the business. Ian also acted as General Secretary of the Australian Athletes' Alliance (AAA), the peak body for Australia’s elite professional athletes. The AAA represents over 3,500 athletes through Australia’s eight major player associations. Ian completed over 4 years as CEO of the Rugby League Players’ Association based in Sydney that included developing a professional and respected organisation and negotiating a historical Collective Bargaining Agreement which saw players recognised as partners in the game. Ian returned to Melbourne and the Carlton Football Club in June 2020 as Chief Commercial Officer and General Counsel, helping the Club through the pandemic. As Executive Director of Sports Advisory Partners Australia (SAPA), Ian is now focused on providing values based leadership and support to empower positive change within SAPA’s team, client community and the sports industry. SAPA is a full-service sports advisory firm covering strategic planning, advocacy, leadership, commercialisation, legal, integrity, governance, regulatory and recruitment support.


Margot Foster AM OLY,BA LLB
Margot Foster AM BA LLB OLY has a storied background in sport as an elite athlete, lawyer, director and educator. Margot began her legal life practising mainly criminal law, running her own practice, acting for some notorious Melbourne identities requiring numerous visits to centres of incarceration around the state to visit her various villains. At the same time she was rowing at an elite level in Victoria and training for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984 at which she won Australia’s first women’s rowing medal in the coxed four. When at university she had taken on her first board and leadership roles in her residential college and, once she took up rowing in third year, with Melbourne University Ladies’ Rowing Club Committee as it then was. After the Olympics (which was followed by world championships and a Commonwealth Games gold medal in 1986), her board career began with her appointment to the inaugural AOC Athletes’ Commission. Since then she has held numerous roles with Australian Sports Commission, New Zealand Sports Commission, International Rowing Federation, Australian Olympic Committee advisory committees, Rowing Australia, Rowing Victoria, Melbourne 1996 Olympic Bid, Australian University Sport, Gymnastics Australia, Melbourne University Sport and a diverse range of other sports bodies. In addition she has been on the boards of Presbyterian Ladies' College Burwood, Trinity College University of Melbourne, National Parks Advisory Committee, and Great Ocean Road Coast Committee among others. Margot is presently Vice President of Motorsport Australia, Chair Sports Environment Alliance, Advisory Council Member Sport Integrity Australia and Chair World Athletics Election Oversight Panel. Since happily giving the law away Margot now works with individual directors, business and sports organisations on their governance programs, processes and policies and created her own online governance training course, launched in 2020, focussed on the very practical things directors need to know and understand to be effective at the board table. Margot was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2015, received the ANZSLA Contribution to Sport Award in 2011, was named a Fellow at Trinity College University of Melbourne in 2017 and is a member of the Rowing Victoria Hall of Fame.


Juanita Maiden, Senior Associate, Mullins Lawyers
Juanita is an experienced and commercial lawyer, with expertise in sports law and a background in commercial law and wills and estates. Having started her legal career in 1997, Juanita went on to hold various corporate roles before returning to the legal industry in 2009. Juanita has always had a particular interest and passion for sports law, having held the role of CEO at a National Basketball League Club for several years, including going on to take a position on the board. She combines her extensive practical experience with her unique knowledge of sporting organisations to help her clients. Juanita advises clients in the sports and events industry on commercial agreements, governance and constitutions, contracts and disputes, disciplinary issues and complaints handling, and tribunal hearings and appeals Furthering her commitment to the sports industry, Juanita currently serves on the Boards of Queensland Cricket and South East Qld Rugby League and as Chairperson of the AFL Qld Tribunal. She is a member of the Australian + NZ Sports Law Association and the National Sports Tribunal Legal Assistance Panel and has guest lectured at the University of Queensland in sports law.


Adrian Anderson, Barrister, Aickin Chambers
Adrian is an advocate practising in sports law, disciplinary tribunals and appeals, defamation, suppression orders, contempt, common law/personal injuries, criminal and general commercial law. He brings to the Bar experience as a senior executive in major professional sport. A former partner in the commercial litigation division of Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Adrian was General Manager of Football Operations of the AFL from 2004-2012 establishing the AFL’s integrity unit, tribunal system and heading negotiations such as the Collective Bargaining Agreement. At Corrs, he was the principal media law advisor to the Herald Sun and 3AW. He also acted for the AFL Players’ Association, the Australian Cricketers’ Association, Greyhound Racing Victoria, and professional athletes in disciplinary matters, anti-doping cases and contractual disputes.


Marianne Barker, Barrister, Owen Dixon Chambers West
Marianne Barker is a barrister at the Victorian Bar who specialises in intellectual property law, mediations and sports law. Her sports law experience arose out of her work as Chairman of the Board of Taekwondo Australia and later as the President of the Appeals Tribunal for that organisation. In 2019 she was awarded the Denis Callinan Award for her pro bono sports law work for athletes and others.


Maggie Kearney, Barrister, Tenth Floor Chambers
Maggie Kearney is a barrister practising primarily in commercial and corporations' law and intellectual property. Maggie regularly appears both led and unled in NSW courts, the Federal Court, Tribunals and investigations and inquiries. Maggie was admitted as a solicitor in 2018 and called to the Bar in 2022. Maggie has experience in advising and appearing on behalf of clients in complex contractual disputes, corporations matters, insurance matters, equity disputes, copyright and trade marks disputes, and has a particular interest in sports law and media matters. Before joining the Bar, Maggie was a Senior Associate in commercial litigation at Corrs Chambers Westgarth and earlier worked at Ashurst in intellectual property and media. Maggie was previously tipstaff to the Hon. Justice Hammerschlag when his Honour was Head of the Commercial List and Technology and Construction Lists. Maggie holds a Master of Laws with distinction from the University of Sydney, where Maggie was awarded the Ross Waite Parsons Scholarship, and a Juris Doctor with distinction from the University of New South Wales.