Public 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. 
• Construction – public improvements, architect and construction contracts, competitive bidding documents and procedures.
• Federal and state employment laws –  Fair Labor Standards Act, Family Medical Leave Act, Title VII, Title IX, Americans With Disabilities Act, OSHA and workers’ compensation.
• Financing –  highly ranked nationally in education finance. 
• Labor relations and collective bargaining – collective bargaining, arbitration, government relations, impasse/strike preparations, employee grievances and claims of unfair labor practices.
• Acquisition and disposition of property – office equipment, energy conservation measures, school buses, and the leasing, purchase and sale of property. 
• Special education law – counseling, attendance at Individualized Education Program meetings, mediation, due process hearings, training, legislative involvement and court appeals.
• Student rights and responsibilities – custody, residency, transportation, discipline 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

• Winning a unanimous jury verdict for the defense in a workers' compensation claim for death benefits. The allegations included claims that long work hours and job-related stress caused cardiac arrhythmia. The jury agreed with our arguments that there was no evidence substantiating that the arrhythmia was caused by the individual's employment.
• Representing a Washington DC university in its negotiation of management contracts for its conference center and conference center hotel.
• Acting as counsel to a historically black university in its evaluation and execution of a US$45 million, forward-starting 22-year interest rate swap (counterparty Goldman Sachs). The swap became effective at the point at which the university intended to issue variable rate bonds to refund existing bonds, and the swap synthetically fixed the rate on the new bonds.
• 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.
• Prosecuting and maintaining a large and growing trademark portfolio for a leading worldwide art and design school.
• Advising a client with respect to possible copyright or breach of contract claims against a China-based company using the client's proprietary training materials and methods to operate a competitive business.
• Serving as borrower's counsel to a new, boarding-school public charter school in Washington DC, in a US$6 million issuance of District of Columbia tax exempt bonds, credit-enhanced by Bank of America. The bonds, in conjunction with major financial commitments from donors, financed the construction of a second dormitory on the school's campus. When combined with the financing for the school's first phase of construction, this deal represented the largest loan in the United States made to a charter school managed by a nonprofit organization.
• 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.
• 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.