Sports Lawyer In Spotlight: Roberto De Palma Barracco

Roberto de Palma Barracco is an attorney, mediator and arbitrator focused on the lifestyle industries - especially sports, art, entertainment, fashion and food. He is a leading conflict management & crisis prevention consultant in the lifestyle industries. Roberto’s transnational academic background is the basis of his work, his immersion in different cultures makes him a “translator” of legal cultures.

He is a LawInSport Editorial Board member, a CAS arbitrator, a Court of Arbitration for Art (CAfA) arbitrator and mediator, a FIFA Football Tribunal mediator, and a CBF national dispute resolution chamber (CNRD) member. He serves as an ad hoc consultant in lifestyle industries’ projects, including the CBF Academy. You can find him in a couple of different sports law, fashion law, and litigation courses in Brazil and in the US.

Aside that, he is a PhD candidate, holds a University of Oregon School of Law LL.M. degree, and University of São Paulo School of Law MSc (masters of legal science) and LLB. He enjoys studying, so he tries to keep up to date going back to the classroom every year. He has extensive sports dispute resolution experience, having served as a FIVB appeals panel member and a handful of Brazilian sports disciplinary panels – from snow to Paralympic sports. In the past, Roberto has worked in-house for Sport Club Corinthians Paulista, a law office in Brazil, and he has co-created lifestyle consultancies where he served as CIO until January 2022.

We sat down with Roberto in April 2022 to conduct this interview. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did.

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