When it comes to helping your educational institution stay on the right side of the law with your faculty, staff, and students, you’ll want lawyers who are best in class when it comes to understanding the unique issues and dynamics presented by the school environment.

The core mission of the Fisher Phillips Education Practice Group is to help administrators of K-12 educational institutions understand and meet your legal obligations to faculty, staff, and students under state and federal law. We recognize that each decision made in the school environment – from application and admission to termination and expulsion – affects your relationship with students, parents, faculty, and staff. We help you understand your rights and responsibilities associated with each decision, and assist in achieving the best possible results at every step.

Prevention and Compliance
We offer a full complement of preventive services to proactively address employee and student concerns that arise in public and private elementary and secondary institutions. We develop and review contracts, enrollment agreements, applications, handbooks, and manuals for students, employees, and faculty. We also conduct compliance audits to identify and correct wage and hour and other legal concerns. Our attorneys work with your school’s governing board to draft executive contracts for Heads of School that comply with the Internal Revenue Code, and provide advice on appropriate board policy, guidelines, and school policy.

Training
We conduct individually crafted training sessions for administrators, managers, and teachers regarding their obligations to employees and students on the topics of discrimination, accommodation, harassment, federal funding, contract issues, and various types of torts, including assault, battery, invasion of privacy, and defamation. 

Defense of Legal Actions
If a legal claim arises, we can represent your institution before administrative agencies, and we defend lawsuits alleging discrimination in employment and education. We also develop and assist in implementing arbitration programs for students and employees to offer an alternative dispute resolution strategy.

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