At Porter Wright, we help professional athletes navigate the complex business and personal matters they face every day. Our team has significant experience advising clients in estate planning and asset protection, franchise and start-up business analysis, real estate development, and intellectual property disputes and protection, as well as nonprofit formation, governance and management.

As a player, coach, agent or parent, it is essential to maintain the right support system around an athlete. We seamlessly interface with the athlete’s team of advisors to provide the tailored and objective advice necessary to make informed decisions. Our advisors provide independent and objective counsel that gives balance to the team and keeps the athlete’s interests first. It is this well rounded approach that allows the athlete to plan for the future, knowing their business and personal interests are protected.

Regardless of what phase an athlete is at in their career – rookie, veteran or retired player – the right guidance recognizes present opportunities while preparing for what lies ahead. We know there is life before, during and after sports. Our job is to help protect athletes and maximize the positive impact they can have on themselves, their families and their communities both now and beyond their playing days.

Athlete transitions

Whether you are stepping on the field for the first time in your professional career, considering where you may be playing next or transitioning out of the game and into the business world, we are here to help you navigate these personal and professional transitions. Sound guidance, business savvy and legal counsel that goes beyond the letter of the law to help you decide: What’s next?

Your personal life and professional career will evolve and develop over the years. With Porter Wright as your counsel, you will have a team of qualified advisors who put your interests above all to provide valuable guidance and support along the journey.

Contract review and analysis

Opportunities knock every day. As a professional athlete, the volume of opportunities will feel tremendous – but how do you know what may be the right move? When you are presented with a contract, endorsement deal or investment opportunity, we will work with you to understand the hurdles, risks or potential outcomes that putting your name on an agreement may create.

Transactions are at the heart of what we do. From due diligence and research, to analyzing valuation and deal potential, our focus is one thing: protecting you and your interests. With professional athletes, the risks associated with signing agreements will often have long lasting consequences. We will work with you to efficiently and effectively review any document that requires your signature so you can have the confidence of knowing your interests are protected.

Crisis management

In a digital world, images, conversations and exchanges can be captured, altered and shared in an instant. Our attorneys help guide clients with crisis management and image control, as well as with the legal matters accompanying the use of social media. We can help you with media inquiries, advise on statements and assist in preparing a long term plan to address whatever the issue at hand may be. No matter what type of personal or professional crisis you might be faced with, we are able to seamlessly interface with your marketing and media teams to provide guidance on how to lessen risk, minimize negative exposure and respond appropriately.

Social media

The rapid evolution of social media presents businesses, and individuals alike, with both new opportunities and myriad risks each day. Focusing social media efforts in the right direction takes not only flexibility, but also a legally savvy digital strategy. Porter Wright offers an experienced team of attorneys knowledgeable across each facet of the growing social media landscape. We help ensure our clients build a legally sound approach to carefully grow their business or individual brand presence, deepen customer relationships and achieve business goals, all while mitigating risk.

Our social media team brings together a diverse group of attorneys focused on areas of law regularly affecting, and being affected by, social media. From the latest on the discoverability of information posted on social media sites, to how social media affects the hiring, evaluation, discipline and termination policies for employers, to necessary SEC disclosures and FTC guidelines on advertising in social media, to the administration of sweepstakes, we routinely handle the issues that increasingly transform our clients' day-to-day business operations and entrepreneurial goals.