Once in a lifetime

With more medals on offer to women than men, a fully integrated para-sport programme and an objective to be carbon neutral, the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games is set to be a historic event of firsts.

We are incredibly proud to have had the opportunity to work alongside Birmingham 2022 as the Official Legal Advisers to the Games. Working behind the scenes, our cross-practice team has supported Birmingham 2022 across a multitude of legal projects to build a foundation on which a moment in history will be made.

Telling the world

At the start of the summer in 2019, we had a secret.

Following a rigorous tender process, we had been appointed as the exclusive Official Legal Advisers to the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, but we couldn’t tell the world yet. An excitement hung around our offices as we waited for the day when we could make the announcement. When we finally could reveal our appointment, we wanted to shout it from the rooftops.

We marked the news with a full takeover of Birmingham New Street - the largest train station in the city, with hundreds of thousands of passengers travelling through each week. In addition to our role as Official Legal Advisers, we were named as the first official sponsor of the Games.  

Doing what we do best

Providing legal experience across a multitude of practice areas.

Legal support is usually key to any major project, and the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games is no different. Following our appointment, work began straight away advising Birmingham 2022 across various practice areas including corporate governance, procurement, brand protection and dispute resolution. 

Our work has seen us being involved in some of the most exciting aspects of the Games. We were proud to advise on the creation of the mascot Perry the Bull, with a cross-firm team providing expertise in all of the areas necessary to bring such a character to life. The project involved a competition, a virtual mascot summit and a launch - all of which needed deep legal knowledge in areas such as licensing, design rights, talent agreements, social media influencer marketing, NDAs and intellectual property. We have also advised on wider projects such as the design and build of the medals and the Birmingham 2022 Queen's Baton Relay.

Our work has encompassed everything that a public body procuring the organisation of an international sporting event could need, including advising on:

  • workforce issues;
  • procurement of goods and services, such as delivery of host broadcasting and ticketing, alongside public procurement strategic advice and support;
  • new venue and accommodation agreements for multiple venues;
  • FOIA and data protection matters, including for the legacy, marketing and ticketing teams; and
  • the Birmingham Commonwealth Games Act, including developing the regulations dealing with preventing unauthorised advertising and trading into the run up of the Games and during the Games.

An extension of the Birmingham 2022 team

Legal advice at the heart of the Games

We are proud to give our people opportunities to gain experience in new settings while building client relationships via secondments.

A key element of our partnership with the Games has been to provide secondees to resource the in-house legal team. For our people this has not just been a chance to apply their expertise elsewhere but also a once in a lifetime experience.

Just one great example of our secondment work was one of our first year associates joining Birmingham 2022 as the legal lead for the Ceremonies, Cultural and Queen's Baton (CCQ) team, working across a wide variety of exciting projects to help make the Games happen.

Our secondments for the Games span further than legal roles, with secondees being placed into the Legacy Integration team at Birmingham 2022, working on a number of matters, including the Legacy Plan - a key part of the Games' proposed impact on the local area.

Supporting Team England

A Games is nothing without the athletes, and we're really proud to be the Official Legal Advisers to Commonwealth Games England and Official Sponsors of Team England, in addition to Birmingham 2022. 

We are advising Commonwealth Games England across a range of practice areas including commercial and contract matters. Gowling WLG (Canada) LLP are also the official sponsors to Commonwealth Games Canada.

Our international involvement has led to some great opportunities for healthy competition between our people, when athletes from both Team England and Team Canada supported a summer-long internal challenge. The competition was a fantastic opportunity to bring together the international offices of Gowling WLG, inspired by athletes hoping to head to Birmingham 2022, and promote our values of bringing something different, striving to be better and the power of teamwork.

Our relationship with Team England has led to some familiar faces supporting events and initiatives for our people, including Helen Scott and Anyika Onuora joining us for International Women's Day in 2020 and 2021 respectively and Ali Jawad for our 'Let's talk about disability' event. Our sponsorship has given us the chance to bring these role models directly to our people - a rare opportunity for most law firms.

Wellbeing during difficult times

The COVID-19 pandemic brought disruption that no one could have predicted. While it left some of our plans to celebrate our work with Birmingham 2022 on pause, it allowed us to leverage some of our other ideas to make the health and wellbeing of our people a priority during strange and difficult times.

Birmingham 2022 aims to be a socially responsible Games, and because of this we wanted to inspire our people to pursue a healthy approach to better mental and physical fitness. With everybody locked away indoors, this was a chance for us to use our sponsorship to take a different approach to rally the mood and wellbeing of our people.

In the early days of the pandemic, we kicked off our 'Lockdown Showdown' competition to inspire healthy competition between our practice groups and departments. Birmingham 2022-themed challenges featured extensively as we provided our people with different activities to help keep them smiling.

The prize for the Lockdown Showdown saw Olympian and Commonwealth Games champion Denise Lewis join us for an exclusive webinar with the winning group, speaking about her career and life experiences, as well as sharing her own excitement for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

As winter came in 2020 and the UK went into another lockdown, we launched a weekly wellbeing initiative designed to deliver wellbeing resources to our people, many of which involved Team England athletes. We shared #FitnessFriday videos and tips, encouraging people to try something new in their home workouts. We also shared videos of Team England athletes discussing their own mental health, as well as the #22for22 campaign that saw the stars of Team England each show off an exercise people could do from home.

Volunteers

Volunteers are an essential part of staging any multisport event like the Commonwealth Games, and with over 13,000 needed to help put on Birmingham 2022, we got involved to make sure all the processes were in place to appoint the best people for the job. We have had a hand in the volunteer application process through our legal work, carrying out work on securing the Volunteer Selection Centre - a fully-fledged exhibition where thousands of aspiring volunteers were interviewed - as well as receiving some special opportunities for our people.

One of the benefits of our sponsorship is the opportunity for our people to be involved directly with the Games as a volunteer, with 10 spots available to members of our firm. To help us choose, people from around our business shared videos explaining why it would mean so much to them to be involved with Birmingham 2022.

Once the lucky 10 are confirmed, we look forward to introducing them to you.

The Birmingham 2022 Queen's Baton Relay

The Queen's Baton Relay will see the Baton visit all 72 of the Commonwealth nations and territories, bringing the Commonwealth Games to life on the international stage ahead of next summer.

With offices in three of the different nations that the Baton will visit, the Queen's Baton Relay is another exciting opportunity for Gowling WLG.

After advising on the creation of the most sophisticated and technical Baton yet, we were in attendance at Buckingham Palace to watch it set off around the world, carrying Her Majesty The Queen's message around the Commonwealth.

Legacy

Much like Birmingham 2022’s approach to leaving a lasting legacy with the Games, we want to ensure that we leave behind a very tangible impact on the community through our sponsorship.

Our relationship with the Games has given us a new platform to make a difference in the community, amplifying the work we already do and collaborating with other organisations to drive change. We are committed to supporting charities through donations, support and the thousands of hours of pro-bono work we do as a law firm each year.

Now, as a part of our commitment to giving back, we are supporting social enterprise with mentoring, training, pro bono and other kinds of support - all of which will last beyond the Games.

The first programmes are already getting underway - we are providing mentors to the Black Social Entrepreneurs Futures programme, in partnership with the School for Social Entrepreneurs. Through this, we are providing mentorship to more than a dozen up-and-coming black-owned social enterprises, whilst providing financial support to the BSEF programme. Soon we will be launching a project with iSE to provide support to their Women's Enterprise Hub in Sparkbrook, the start of a longer-term partnership with iSE.

United by 2022

Birmingham 2022’s community programme - has now launched and will see the Games support exceptional community projects that align with the Birmingham 2022 mission. Aiming to bring people together, help the region grow and succeed, support improvement of health and wellbeing, put the region on a global stage and lastly be a catalyst for change, United by 2022 resonates with our values and we are proud to be supporting it as our charity partner in 2022.