Canadian Lawyer

24 A p r i l 2 0 1 4 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m Cross EXaMinEd In athletes' defence Windsor law prof Emir Crowne offers his legal services to athletes for free. by ron Stang Emir Crowne got involved with the SDRCC because of his interest in sport. T he recent Sochi Olympics might have put on display the fierce competition, personalities, and glamour of the Winter Games, but what the television–viewing public didn't see was the behind-the-scenes struggles of athletes to make it to the top ranks. Often these struggles are fraught with almost as much drama and rivalry as the athletic competitions. They often pit athlete against athlete or athlete against national sports organizations, which set the rules and make the decisions about who will be on teams representing their country. Whether it be in bobsleigh, skiing, speed skating, or curling, conflicts arise over everything from criteria used to select an athlete to violations of personal codes of conduct. Until recently, the sports organizations policed themselves. Athletes who didn't make the team or were punished for rule violations could only appeal within those sports bodies, or the impractical and seldom used redress to the courts. That all changed 10 years ago when the fed- eral government created the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada, which offers independent mediation and arbitration beyond the sports organizations, employ- ing inexpensive and relatively quick hear- ings to accommodate athletes' demanding practice and competition schedules. "At the very beginning the tribunal was intended to be low-cost and easily accessible for the sports community," says SDRCC CEO Marie-Claude Asselin. Central to its tribunals are lawyers will- ing to represent parties in dispute. There are two lists on the SDRCC web site — those who charge and those offering services pro bono, often the same people. About half the appeals brought before the SDRCC relate to doping, says Asselin. The others most often have to do with team selection, carding (athlete funding), and discipline. Tribunals are held before profes- sional Canadian arbitrators. One of the most active pro bono law- yers is Emir Crowne, a law professor at the University of Windsor who specializes in intellectual property, sport, and human rights law. He decided to get involved with the SDRCC because of his interest in sport and because it was easy to parlay his work in other fields to the issues in athletic con- flicts. "A lot of tort law deals with negligence and unprofessional misconduct," he says. Crowne sees athletes in many ways the same as minorities. "People don't real- ize that athletes aren't millionaires," he chuckles. "The vast majority barely scrape together a living." Moreover, he says, the way sports organizations' disciplinary bod- ies are composed "just gives the appear- ance of unfairness" because the appeal is held within the organization where the issue arose. Crowne said SDRCC hearings often reveal the problems that typify close- sandra strangeMore pro bono report

• Cover