We have adopted a specialist team approach to our practices for many years. We feel that this is the way our clients want us to work, and that specialisation leads to the provision of a better service.
“We are at an important time as we seek to grow the audience share for our sport by making it more accessible and relevant, particularly to young people." “For many areas that means making our regulations and processes simpler to understand and more streamlined. The disciplinary process is central to that mission and Christopher is the perfect person to lead the review as someone who is greatly respected in the game and has a collaborative, results-oriented management style.”
Lucy Northeast
Practice Director - Crime & Sports
0117 930 9000
Click here to email
Christopher Quinlan KC is a prominent and highly-respected silk in the areas of Sports, Crime and Regulatory & Discipline practice. He is firmly established as a leading member of the Sports Bar in England & Wales. He is an accomplished and very experienced trial advocate and Crown Court Recorder.
Christopher appears before and is a highly experienced chairman of numerous sport disciplinary bodies and panels. He has led and published sporting reviews such as the Quinlan Review for the British Horseracing Authority, and the Independent review into events at Wrexham Tennis Centre. He is also the independent Chair of World Rugby’s Judicial Panel and held the same position for the Football Association from 2019-July 2025. In December 2022, the English Football League appointed Christopher as chair of its new Club Financial Review Panel.
Christopher is vastly experienced silk with an international and national sports law practice. He appears before and chairs tribunals adjudicating upon on-field foul play, off-field misconduct, anti-doping, safeguarding and selection appeals in a wide range of sports and competitions. He has significant leadership experience in sport and generally.
For many years Christopher has officiated at the following international and national tournaments and competitions –
• Olympic Games – 2020 (Tokyo), 2024 (Paris)
• Rugby World Cup (men) – 2007, 2011, 2025, 2019, 2023
• Rugby World Cup (women) – 2017, 2021, 2025
• Rugby 7s World Cup – 2018 & 2022
• Rugby – Six Nations, July a November international ‘windows’
• British & Irish Lions 2021 & 2025 tours
• European and domestic professional rugby union.
• Premier League and Championship football
Leadership roles in sport –
• Rugby Union – World Rugby Judicial Panel Chair (2017- )
• Football – In August 2019 Christopher was appointed the Football Association’s first independent JPC. His term was extended for a final (permitted) term, which ends in July 2025.
• Football – In January 2023 Christopher was appointed Chair of the English Football League (‘EFL’) Club Financial Review Panel (‘CFRP’). That was extended in 2024. The CFRP has responsibility for determining the appropriate outcomes in respect of breaches of financial regulations.
Development roles in sport –
• Racing – In 2016 Christopher led a review of the structure, composition, and operation of the British Horseracing Authority (‘BHA’) Disciplinary Panel, Appeal Board and Licensing Committee. The resulting ‘Quinlan Review’ made far-reaching recommendations to bring the process in line with current best practice. The BHA implemented all his recommendations.
• Athletics – In summer of 2020 Christopher conducted an independent review and evaluation of the safeguarding policies and procedures of UK Athletics. The executive summary and recommendations were published in July 2020 and were accepted in their entirety.
• Rugby union – Christopher helped develop the Head Contact Process (‘HCP’) which is used by match officials, citing commissioners and judicial panels to assess the seriousness of foul play involving head/neck contact in rugby union. The HCP is used at every level of the game from international to club rugby worldwide. When you see a referee assessing whether a high tackle merits a yellow or red card, they are applying a process Christoper helped create.
• Rugby union – Christopher helped develop a new expedited Off-Field Sanctioning Process, which aims to make the foul play disciplinary system more efficient and streamlined. It will be trialled this summer (2025) in the British & Irish Lions tour, World Rugby U20s Championship and other international matches.
Author & speaker –
Christopher has conducted other reviews commissioned by national governing bodies.
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• Tennis – In January 2019 Christopher led an independent review into events at Wrexham Tennis Centre. The Lawn Tennis Association (‘LTA’) commissioned the review into events at Wrexham Tennis Centre following the imprisonment for sexual offences of its former head coach in July 2017. The report (which was published) found fault on the part of the centre, as well as Tennis Wales and the LTA and made safeguarding recommendations.
• Gymnastics – Christopher oversees and manages the British Gymnastics (‘BG’) specialist Independent Complaints Process which handled a wide range of safeguarding complaints. He made decisions about the investigation and management of those complaints. He chairs case management team meetings, deciding cases or referring them to independent case panels.
• Christopher often collaborates with other professionals outside of chambers and the bar. He frequently speaks at disciplinary, anti-doping, safeguarding and sports law conferences.
• In July 2024 Christopher chaired Lime Culture’s 1st Safer Sport Knowledge & Network Conference during which individuals and sporting organisations shared best practice in making sport safe and discussed successes and the challenges in so doing. He has accepted an invitation to do so in 2026.
• He writes about the interface of sport and the law. For example,
read about his experience at the Pairs Olympics in 2024 here –
https://www.lawinsport.com/topics/item/a-silks-story-what-its-like-to-experience-and-officiate-at-the-paris-2024-olympics
• You can read about the new expedited sanctioning process in rugby union which Christopher helped to develop and is overseeing –
https://www.lawinsport.com/topics/item/the-expedited-off-field-sanctioning-process-in-international-rugby-union
• In the autumn of 2025 he will appear in a safeguarding podcast recorded with leading sports lawyers Bird & Bird, London and Gemma White KC, Blackstone Chambers.
Christopher is a very experienced criminal silk who prosecutes and defends cases of the utmost gravity, including homicide and serious sexual allegations.
Together with his ongoing homicide practice, some recent examples of his cases are set out below.
In the summer of 2024, Christopher prosecuted to conviction two men charged with the murder and robbery of a suspected drug dealer in his own home. The case was especially difficult given the only other persons present in the house at the material time were an associate of the defendants and the other with his own motives to serve. Both defendants were convicted of murder and robbery.
Christopher represented a seventeen-year-old boy charged with double murder in the notorious trial arising out of the unlawful killing of children Max Dixon and Mason Rist in Bristol in 2024. The trial in Bristol received national publicity.
Christopher prosecuted three young boys charged with murder arising out the unlawful killing of a child at a sixteenth birthday party in Bath. One boy was convicted of murder and the other two are to be retried in the autumn 2025.
Christopher prosecuted a four-week murder trial in Winchester, arising out of a dispute on the Isle of Wight. The two defendants were alleged to have murdered an armed man who attacked them in their own home. A tough case, given the deceased attacked them twice, armed and at night.
Christopher prosecuted to conviction this tricky murder case. The defendant was a victim of domestic violence who killed her partner. There were no eyewitnesses, she had injuries and neighbours overheard her screaming just before she stabbed him to death. Notwithstanding those and other challenges, the defendant was convicted of murder largely because of cross-examination.
Prosecuted two defendants who murdered a man in a nightclub in Bristol in a revenge attack which had its origins in a gang feud. A third defendant assisted them by taking the knives from the scene. All three were convicted.
Prosecuted a homicide case in which the defendants were, uncommonly, charged separately, one with murder and the other manslaughter in respect of the same victim. The defendants attacked a young soldier in Brecon. One was a highly rated amateur boxer.
Prosecuted three defendants, a mother, her son and his girlfriend. The first two were charged with the murder of her husband and his step-father. They beat him to death in the matrimonial home after a bout of drinking. Thereafter, with the third defendant they lied about what happened. Out of those lying accounts to police, all three were charged with perverting the course of justice.
Prosecuted to conviction one of the first slavery and servitude case brought in England and Wales. All five defendants were convicted after a three-month trial. Very substantial confiscation orders were made in consequence.
Christopher was instructed to represent a defendant charged with gross negligence manslaughter. He was an engineer alleged to have designed and supervised the building of a barn extension which he knew to be lethally dangerous. Two other defendants were charged with health & safety offences. The deceased was electrocuted when his ladder touched an overhead power cable. Case involved esoteric and complicated electricity and other health and safety regulations.
Represented an internationally renowned artist charged with historic sexual allegations as part of the ‘Operation Yewtree’ investigation.
Christopher developed his regulatory junior practice in silk, with an expertise in Environmental Law. He has prosecuted several high-profile cases for Natural Resources Wales (and its predecessor, Environment Agency Wales). Those complex cases concerned the illegal depositing of millions of pounds of waste within and outside the UK.
Lucy Northeast
Practice Director - Crime & Sports
0117 930 9000
Click here to email
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