Sports Law Clinic

UB School of Law’s Player Injury Project is designed to help students explore various aspects of player injury data with the objective of developing policy and potentially legislation to improve player participation experience, reduce player injuries and ultimately decrease associated litigation. Under the direction of law faculty, students will have the opportunity to work with Athletic Department, School of Medicine and School of Public Health representatives, including specifically physicians and athletic trainers, as well as Athletic Department administrators. Students will conduct research, draft client memoranda, and respond to issues arising during the course of collaborative efforts to identify best practices.

Work in this project will involve:

1. Analysis and comparison of rules or policies regulating types of athletic participation and/or training, such as the Ivy League’s restriction upon contact practices in football;
2. Researching and assessing the outcome of legislation limiting contact football participation in youth;
3. Researching the impact of different types of playing surfaces upon player injuries;
4. Determining the extent to which collective bargaining in professional sports has been able to adequately address the concerns identified in #3;
5. Identifying the legal ramifications of the concerns identified in #3 upon youth and collegiate level athletics;
6. Determining how to address the legal ramifications identified in #5;
7. Researching the relationship of “player load” to injury potential and developing best practices at the youth, collegiate and professional level to reduce legal liability and improve participant experience; and
8. Examine the relationship between reported incidents of domestic violence, erratic and/or criminal behavior and other potential signs of frontal lobe damage and documented head injuries to assess the need for revised traumatic brain injury (concussion) management legislation.