Scott Schneider’s article “The Rise of In-House Counsel within College Athletics Departments” was featured on Safety Outlook on February 23, 2015.

Without question, high-profile litigation against the NCAA and NFL for debilitating injuries linked to repeated head trauma has forced us to consider ways in which football can be played safer. To date, that litigation has largely spared individual schools and teams. As a result, change regarding safety has been top down, guided either by the NFL or NCAA as opposed to individual teams or schools.

This may be about to change at the college level, however, as individual schools are now being targeted more often with lawsuits. It is worth noting that historically university athletics departments have operated with considerable autonomy within universities. Generally speaking, there has been very little broad institutional involvement with items like setting practice schedules, picking appropriate equipment, providing training to medical personnel, crafting informed consent notices for student athletes, etc. It would be a rare occurrence indeed for anyone in athletics to says, “let’s see what the attorneys have to say about this.”

This uptick in lawsuits, however, has the potential to thrust in-house counsel at major universities into a much more prominent role in assessing these issues. This is especially true if mere institutional compliance with NCAA protocols fails to serve as an adequate defense in subsequent tort cases. Put another way, athletics may start looking like any other institutional risk management issue with a brand new set of players who have no background in sports and who ask fundamental questions that have the potential to substantially reshape the way their institutions handle athletics safety issues.

In the article, Scott answers the following questions regarding athletics safety:

  • Is our equipment state of the art?
  • Are we following NCAA guidelines and is that enough?
  • Should we implement medical surveillance programs?
  • Should the university be involved in this activity at all?

To read the full article, please visit Safety Outlook.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.