Corey Sterling On Protecting Fitness Businesses Through Proactive Legal Strategy

A yoga student got injured in a class Cory Sterling was attending in Vancouver. There was no waiver on file, and the studio didn't understand why that mattered. That gap is what pulled Sterling out of a downtown corporate law job and into a niche almost no lawyer was serving at the time: gyms, studios, and wellness businesses. Nine years later, by his own account, that niche became Conscious Counsel, a practice built entirely around the health, active lifestyle, and outdoor (HALO) sector.

Pete Moore sits down with Sterling to unpack what "proactive law" actually means for an operator, where new liability is showing up as gyms add GLP-1 protocols and med spa services, and why a ChatGPT-drafted waiver is not the same thing as one built by someone who has seen the same lawsuit ten times.

From NFL Marketing to Corporate Law to Conscious Counsel

Sterling's path started in professional sports marketing, including time with the NFL and the Oakland Raiders. Informational interviews with league executives, he says, pointed him toward law school. He became a lawyer, worked in a corporate firm, and by his own description was "absolutely miserable."

At the same time, he was teaching yoga, cycling, and group fitness classes at Equinox and other Vancouver gyms. When an uninsured injury exposed how little the fitness world understood about waivers, Sterling started helping friends who ran studios, first informally, then as a full practice, founded in 2016. 

Proactive Law vs. Reactive Law

Sterling frames his entire practice around one distinction. Proactive law means drafting employment classifications, waivers, and membership agreements before you open, so that when an issue surfaces later, it gets resolved "with one email."

Reactive law means cutting corners early and paying for it later, his example being a client who mislabeled an employee as a contractor and, within the same week as the recording, faced that worker threatening to report the arrangement to the IRS.

Why Generic Contracts, Including AI-Drafted Ones, Don't Cover You

Sterling is direct about the limits of using ChatGPT or similar tools to draft legal documents: they don't carry the pattern recognition of having handled the same dispute repeatedly. He said it plainly on the episode: "ChatGPT is helpful to some extent, but the thing is that AI doesn't have the history or the experience of having done this very, very specific thing over and over again to understand what sort of problems will come up and to produce a document that, A, you understand, that has the things that you need, and B, proactively goes against the issues that a law practice that's been doing this for 10 years."

He noted that when a client's dispute involves an AI-drafted contract, the gaps are usually easy for him to find and exploit on their behalf.

New Liability Around GLP-1s, Hormones, and Pseudo-Medical Services

As gyms and studios add protocols involving hormones, injections, bloodwork, or GLP-1 medications like Ozempic, Sterling says those offerings can be construed as pseudo-medical services, which carry legal exposure well outside a standard gym's risk profile. His practice has been updating waivers and service agreements, and in some cases restructuring how a business is set up, to shield operators from that added liability. He flagged breathwork, contrast therapy, and sauna use as other newer categories where studios often keep old paperwork even as the actual services expand.

Click-to-Cancel Compliance Is a Documentation Problem

Click-to-cancel rules are federal, meaning they apply to any subscription or membership business regardless of state. Sterling says most of the friction he sees isn't government enforcement, it's individual disputes: a member who signed an annual agreement decides after a few months they want out, and the business needs its contract to clearly demonstrate compliance with cancellation rules to prevail on a chargeback. He described winning one such dispute because a session-based membership agreement specified a 90-day expiration on unused sessions, which held up when the client issued a chargeback instead of using them.

Structuring Space-Sharing Deals as Med Spas Move Into Gyms and Studios

Sterling expects a wave of med spa-style services, IV drips, Botox, hyperbaric chambers, GLP-1 protocols, moving into existing health clubs and studios over the next 12 to 24 months, sometimes as a sublease inside an existing footprint.

He calls these "space rental agreements" and stresses that liability allocation has to be explicit in writing, because in what he calls a "fishing expedition" lawsuit, an injured party will typically name every entity in the building, the landlord, the studio, and the med spa operator alike, regardless of who was actually responsible.

Waivers Have to Match the Specific Activity and Equipment

Sterling pushed back on the idea of a one-size-fits-all waiver. A CrossFit box, an Olympic lifting facility, and a Pilates studio each carry different risks and need different language reflecting their specific equipment and activities. He pointed to recurring claims his practice has handled, wall-mounted equipment falling, mirrors breaking, and trainer-related injury allegations, as the kinds of specific risks a generic waiver template tends to miss.

Building a Legal Practice on Word of Mouth

Sterling was candid that he never built Conscious Counsel to scale and sell. Growth has come from referrals and reviews, he cited 466 five-star Google reviews at the time of taping, plus a retainer-style membership product called Conscious Counsel Plus, launched in August of last year, that gives clients ongoing access and proactive notice when laws change, such as recent ADA updates that now extend accessibility requirements to online platforms, not just physical spaces.

Key Takeaways for Operators, Franchisors, and Investors

1. Proactive legal investment beats reactive fire-fighting. Drafting employment classifications, waivers, and membership agreements before you need them turns most disputes into a single email instead of a drawn-out claim (05:10).

2. AI-drafted contracts create exposure, not protection. Sterling says generic or ChatGPT-drafted agreements are easy for opposing counsel to challenge; industry-specific, attorney-drafted documents close gaps that generic templates miss (08:09).

3. Fast-growing service lines carry liability your existing paperwork doesn't cover. GLP-1 protocols, hormone therapy, IV drips, and contrast therapy can be construed as pseudo-medical services, which may require updated waivers and, in some cases, a different business structure (10:39).

4. Click-to-cancel is federal law, and your defense is documentation. Sterling says the practical risk shows up in member chargebacks and disputes, not regulatory audits, and the businesses that win those disputes are the ones whose agreements clearly reflect compliance (12:02).

5. Space-sharing arrangements for med spas or wellness add-ons need their own agreements. As med spa concepts move into existing gyms and studios, Sterling recommends explicit space rental or sublease agreements that allocate liability, since injured parties tend to name every entity in the building regardless of fault (16:08).

6. Waivers should be built around your specific activities and equipment, not copied from a generic template. A CrossFit box, an Olympic lifting facility, and a Pilates studio each need language tailored to their actual risks (19:19).

A Few Quotes Worth Sitting With

"ChatGPT is helpful to some extent, but the thing is that AI doesn't have the history or the experience of having done this very, very specific thing over and over again to understand what sort of problems will come up." - Cory Sterling

"My mentor said to me, Corey, when you get clients, you're going to tell them, you can pay me now or you can pay me later." - Cory Sterling, recounting advice from his mentor

Chapter Timestamps

• 00:00 From NFL and Oakland Raiders marketing to law school
• 02:20 Starting Conscious Counsel in 2016
• 04:10 Growing a legal practice through word of mouth and referrals
• 05:10 Proactive law versus reactive law
• 08:09 Why AI-drafted contracts still leave gaps
• 10:39 New liability from GLP-1s, hormones, and pseudo-medical services
• 12:02 Click-to-cancel laws and chargeback compliance
• 16:08 Med spas moving into gyms and studios, and space rental agreements
• 19:19 Why waivers need to match specific activities and equipment
• 22:30 Closing advice: pay now or pay later

About Cory Sterling

Cory Sterling is the founder of Conscious Counsel, a legal practice based in Vancouver, British Columbia, serving gym owners, studio operators, and wellness entrepreneurs across North America. Before law, he worked in professional sports marketing, including with the NFL and the Oakland Raiders.

Resources

• Cory Sterling on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/corysterling 
• Conscious Counsel: https://www.consciouscounsel.ca 
• Integrity Square: https://www.integritysq.com 

Related HALO Talks Episodes

• Episode 595: Legal Advice for HALO Entrepreneurs, Pitfalls, Intellectual Property, and Franchise Exits with Matt Fornaro
• Episode 587: Exploring GLP-1 Integration and Fitness Industry Innovation with David Appel of Korb Health
• Episode 606: Building Planet Fitness, Joe Pepe Jr. on Family Legacy, Private Equity, and Scaling Fitness Clubs

Want help thinking through the legal, operational, or capital side of scaling your HALO sector business? Visit https://www.integritysq.com to set up a free consultation with Integrity Square.