Education

Representing public school districts and higher education institutions throughout the United States, Squire Sanders' comprehensive public education practice encompasses public finance, labor and employment, special education, taxation, real estate, litigation, intellectual property, environmental and regulatory law.

Squire Sanders lawyers have represented public school districts since the beginning of the 20th century and continue to be on the cutting edge of public law issues as well as at the forefront in representing school districts in their dealings with teaching personnel, administrative staff and students.  Areas of noteworthy strength include:

• Board organization/operations – ethics issues, sunshine laws, public records requests and the development/revision of board policies.
• Federal and state employment laws –  Fair Labor Standards Act, Family Medical Leave Act, Title VII, Title IX, Americans With Disabilities Act, Occupational Safety & Health Administration, workers’ compensation, reductions-in force, health benefits, pensions/retirement plans, tax sheltered annuities, evaluations, employment contracts.
• Financing – counseling and supervision of proceedings for debt and lease-based financing of capital improvements and for cash-flow financings including state law, federal tax and securities law analysis and assistance. For the past five years, Thomson Financial Securities Data has ranked Squire Sanders among the top five bond counsel firms nationally in education finance.
• Labor relations and collective bargaining – employee grievances, arbitration, unfair labor practice claims, union negotiations, fact-findings and impasse/strike preparations.
• Acquisition and disposition of property – office equipment, energy conservation measures, and the leasing, purchase and sale of property.
• Special education law – counseling on compliance with Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, attendance at Individualized Education Program meetings, mediations, and due process hearings, staff training, legislative involvement and court appeals.
• Student rights and responsibilities – custody, residency, transportation, discipline, student records/privacy, first amendment issues and tuition.
• Territory transfers – procedures for district reorganization including annexation, consolidation and transfer.

Our decades of experience also extend to higher education institutions. For some clients we act as general counsel. Our lawyers also have chaired and served on the boards of multiple private and public colleges and universities throughout the United States. Our extensive counseling experience includes:

• Board of trustee meetings, functions and resolutions
• Bond financing
• Bylaws, faculty guidelines and administrative manuals
• Litigation over testamentary gifts
• Executive compensation
• Development, fundraising and implementation of gifts
• Taxation of income from ancillary sources
• Ownership and licensing of intellectual property

Representative Experience

• Setting up local charitable trusts for a prominent private US university in Hong Kong and Japan, to allow residents of those locations to obtain local tax benefits available for charitable donations to foreign alma mater institutions.
• Assisting a US-based nonprofit institution of higher education with a comprehensive corporate governance review of its Slovak Republic-based affiliates.
• Successfully representing a Washington DC university in a US$6.1 million case previously before the court for a bench trial. Another organization requested that the court award the deceased’s 20-percent legacy, intended for a nursing home of the organization that was non-existent, to the organization itself to be used for the benefit of elderly members of the organization under a cy pres statute. Our client, the university, contended that the void legacy statute required the gift to be awarded to it as the sole remaining residuary legatee. The university contended in the second place that the cy pres statute could not be applied because the deceased had not had the requisite general charitable intent. Thirdly, the university argued that cy pres could not support an award to the other organization because such an award would contravene the deceased’s expressly stated desire that, if there was no organization nursing home, her entire estate should go to the university. The court ruled in our favor and awarded the legacy to the university.
• Performing an analysis of, and giving comprehensive, layperson-oriented advice, on the legal requirements applicable to a private university’s on-campus mental health clinic.
• Providing an educational corporation with a comprehensive package of training and materials with respect to employment practices in China.
• Defending a university and two of its faculty against allegations of theft of trade secrets involving nanotechnology.
• Acting as outside general counsel to Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio. Our work includes, among other things, employment and student counseling and litigation, vendor and other contracts, 501(c)(3) and other tax advice, real estate matters, litigation, environmental matters, employee benefits, estates and trusts and planned giving.
• Serving as international counsel to a major private university and advising on immigration matters when the university seeks to bring a foreign national into the United States as part of its staff.
• Representing the Parma City School District before the United States Supreme Court as to whether the parents of a student with a disability must have legal counsel to prosecute the claims of their child. The Sixth Circuit held that the parents had no substantive rights of their own under the statute and could not represent their child pro se. Working with legal counsel, the parents sought and received a writ of certiorari from the US Supreme Court. After oral argument, the Supreme Court held that nonlawyer parents may proceed pro se in representing the interests of their child in a federal court action under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act.
• Representing a leading university's technology transfer office in handling patent applications in the United States, Japan, Korea, the PRC and Europe for a variety of processes and technologies including advanced imaging technology.