Spencer Turner

Barrister

Spencer has a significant sports law practice which includes acting for athletes, governing bodies, agents, coaches and insurers. His experience spans the full range of sports law matters including selection, doping, safeguarding, governance, disciplinary proceedings, commercial matters and cases involving serious personal injury or clinical negligence. Spencer also has experience in non-contentious sports matters including assisting in drafting policies for governing bodies.

He has been appointed to sit as a legal panel member for the England Boxing Disciplinary Panel.

Some of Spencer’s recent experience includes:

Acting as junior counsel for the Rugby Football League (led by William Audland KC) in the RFL concussive brain injury litigation in a claim involving over 100 claimants across the professional and amateur games.
Acting for an international winter sports athlete charged with anti-doping offences including a violation of the prohibition against assisting Athletes during the course of a previous ban, in which Spencer secured a reduction of three years to the period of ineligibility.
Acting for a rugby union player charged with anti-doping offences.
Acting for a heavy weight boxer charged with anti-doping offences and heard before the National Anti-Doping Panel.
Acting for a manager in relation to misconduct charges brought by the FA.
Acting for a Premier League footballer in relation to a career-ending Achilles rupture.
Acting for an EFL footballer in relation to delayed diagnosis of a knee infection following injury.
Acting for a WSL footballer in relation to a claim against her club for failure to provide adequate rehabilitation.

Spencer’s is sought after in personal injury and clinical negligence matters in sport. He is ranked by the Legal 500 as a ‘rising star’ of the personal injury Bar where he is described as having ‘already developed a practice that exceeds his seniority’. He is currently instructed as junior counsel to William Audland KC in the Rugby Football League concussive brain injury litigation case. His practice also includes representing elite sportspeople in clinical negligence matters in which he deals, both led and unled, with complex liability and quantum issues which particularly relate to professional athletes.

In the past 12 months he has advised and represented a former England international football player, three former Premier League football players, several football players in the EFL and a player in the WSL in clinical negligence matters.

Spencer is highly regarded for his private international law practice and is comfortable in dealing with matters involving an international element.

Spencer is also a member of the Sports Resolutions Pro Bono Panel and regularly gives talks and writes on issues arising out of sports law disputes, including head injuries in sport.