BERLIN, September 25, 2026 – Thomas E. Herrich, a lawyer with a degree in business administration and the long-time manager and managing director of Hertha BSC, will become a partner at the renowned Berlin-based commercial law firm Gelbart Legal effective October 1, 2026. With this move, the firm is strengthening its market position in business law and expanding its practice areas to include sports law, media and entertainment consulting, restructuring and reorganization, as well as insolvency, criminal, and real estate law. Thomas E. Herrich has decades of experience at the intersection of sports, business, and law. During his tenure at Hertha BSC, he steered the club through highly complex restructuring and rehabilitation phases, negotiated investor and sponsor agreements, and shaped the club’s strategic direction. He will now apply this in-depth insider expertise from professional sports directly to advising clubs, associations, athletes, companies, and investors.

At Gelbart Legal, Herrich will focus in particular on expanding the firm’s sports law practice—a field with highly specialized legal dynamics—and will use his experience to support the existing real estate law team on major projects and transactions. Furthermore, Herrich will contribute his expertise in corporate restructuring and reorganization, as well as in advising companies in the sports, entertainment, and media sectors. This brings the number of attorneys at Gelbart Legal to seven.

“With Thomas E. Herrich, we are gaining an outstanding leader and an excellent lawyer who knows the sports and real estate industries like few others and brings his expertise to advising clients in the sports, media, and entertainment sectors, as well as in the restructuring and turnaround of companies,” explains the management of Gelbart Legal. “His unique combination of operational management experience in professional sports and deep legal expertise offers our clients invaluable added value. We are very much looking forward to our future together.”

Thomas E. Herrich on joining the firm: “After intensive and successful years in club management, I am looking forward to returning to the advisory side as a partner at Gelbart Legal.” The firm enjoys an excellent reputation for agile and high-caliber business consulting. My goal is to establish Gelbart Legal’s sports and real estate law practices, as well as its corporate restructuring and turnaround advisory services and media and entertainment practice, as leading practice groups in the market.”