Prof. Dr. Martin Schimke

As an Of Counsel and a member of Bird & Bird’s sports team in Düsseldorf, I am an expert sports lawyer, with decades of experience behind me. I'm also a certified specialist lawyer in employment law.

You'll find me listed in the leading legal guides. The JUVE Handbook of German Commercial Law Firms rates me as one of the most recommended lawyers in sports law, and in 2009 I was named as one of the World's Top 20 Most Influential Lawyers in sport by SportBusiness International magazine.

As a former member of the German national basketball team, I began my career advising athletes, sports associations and unions in amateur and professional sport at national and international level. I was a member of the Legal Committee and the Anti-Doping-Commission of the German Basketball Federation as well as a member of the Arbitration Body of the German Ice Hockey League.

Since 1999, I have been an arbitrator of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne and was a member of the CAS Ad Hoc Divisions during the London 2012 and PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Games. For many years, I was the Chairman of the Sports Law Commission of the Union Internationale des Avocats (UIA). Additionally, I am a member of the International Sport Lawyers Association and of the advisory board of the German Association for Sports Law (DVSR) as well as member of the executive committee of the 'Sportrecht' working group of the Deutschen Anwaltverein (DAV). I am also a member of the FISA Ethic Group, which I joined in 2015.