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NFL Players

One More Reason Why It Helps To Have An Agent?

I don’t want to ruin the suspense, but I need to divulge some important information in order to write this post; Shawn Merriman will be on this week’s Nightmare Clients of the Week. If you have not heard, he was suspended 4 games for violating the NFL substance abuse policy.
Now that I have gotten that out of the way, I want to bring up a point that ProFootballTalk.com brought up on October 24th:

For Merriman, the fact that he had no agent when he received the letter notifying him of the pending suspension made if far more likely that word of the development would make its way out, given that Merriman (as we’ve surmised, and we hear our instincts were accurate) told teammates about the situation in an effort to figure out what to do.

I must say, the discussion about this particular case of substance abuse in the NFL has received more media attention recently than any other NFL case that I can think about (and there sure are a lot of cases…just peruse some issues of Nightmare Clients of the Week). Still, I do not believe that Merriman has been criticized in the same way that Major League Baseball players are when information is received regarding their abuse of illegal substances.

If Merriman had an agent, would the word not have spread as far and as fast as it did? It seems like it would be a safer bet to confide in your agent who has a fiduciary duty to protect you over your teammates who have no such duty.

-Darren Heitner 

[tags]shawn merriman, sports agent, agent, san diego chargers[/tags]

By Darren Heitner

Darren Heitner created Sports Agent Blog as a New Year's Resolution on December 31, 2005. Originally titled, "I Want To Be A Sports Agent," the website was founded with the intention of causing Heitner to learn more about the profession that he wanted to join, meet reputable individuals in the space and force himself to stay on top of the latest news and trends.

Heitner now runs Heitner Legal, P.L.L.C., which is a law firm with many practice areas, including sports law and contract law. Heitner has represented numerous athletes and sports agents as legal counsel. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at Indiana University Bloomington from 2011-2014, where he created and taught a course titled, Sport Agency Management, which included subjects ranging from NCAA regulations to athlete agent certification and the rules governing the profession. Heitner serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he teaches a Sports Law class that includes case law surrounding athlete agents and the NCAA rules.