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Dean Gary R. Roberts has been appointed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, with branch offices in New York City and Sydney, Australia, CAS is independent of any sports organization and provides services to facilitate the settlement of sports-related disputes through arbitration or mediation by means of procedural rules adapted to sports’ specific needs.

“It is a great honor and responsibility to be appointed as a judge/member of the Court of Arbitration for Sport,” Dean Roberts said. “The CAS is the single most important sports-related organization in the world making sure that athletic competition in over 100 different sports is honest and fair, and that commercial relationships are carried out in predictable and rational ways. Without the guiding leadership and oversight of the CAS, sports around the world would be chaotic and lack the integrity so critical to both athletic and commercial success.” Dean Roberts is one of the few sports law leaders across the globe entrusted with this decision-making responsibility.

Most CAS disputes are handled in much the same way a court case would be, under pre-hearing and hearing rules and procedures established by the court itself.

Dean Roberts said, “Shortly after the Butch Reynolds doping case in the early 1990s, it became clear how problematic it was to allow civil courts in every country to decide whether an athlete had violated doping rules in his or her respective country and was thus ineligible to represent that country in competitions.”

With the leadership of the International Olympic Committee, the CAS was allowed to become independent, which gave it international credibility. Over the following few years all international sports federations agreed that all disputes to which they or any teams, coaches, or athletes under their jurisdiction were parties would be submitted for final binding arbitration to the CAS, and not to national courts. Roughly 250 lawyers with extensive backgrounds in sports law have been appointed as judges or members of the CAS by the CAS’s governing board, the International Court of Arbitration for Sport.

A recognized expert in sports law, Dean Roberts has published several articles and book chapters on antitrust, labor, and other issues in the sports industry, and has co-authored the leading casebook on sports law. He has served as president of the Sports Lawyers Association and as chairman of the AALS Sports Law Section. He is currently an officer and board member of The Sports Lawyers Association and is editor-in-chief of its monthly on-line newsletter, The Sports Lawyer. He is a certified commercial and sports arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association (2005 - present). He is also a founding member and member of the board of directors for the International Association of Sports Professionals and Executives (2004 - present). He has led the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law since 2007.

Pictured: In front of Lucas Oil Stadium in downtown Indianapolis, Bill Brooks, former wide receiver for the Indianapolis Colts and a current student at IU Robert H. McKinney School of Law, Dean Gary R. Roberts, and Julie Roe Lach, vice president of enforcement for the NCAA and 2004 graduate of the law school