Education Law
Our education law team represents elementary schools, charter schools, high schools, and colleges and universities, in all issues pertaining to education law, and through any legal concerns associated with the operations of schools, including employment and labor, taxation, real estate, land use, construction, and nonprofit board and foundation issues.
Taylor Porter attorneys represent schools in drafting and revising handbooks, faculty handbooks and contracts and advising on all legal matters from discipline to admissions to hiring. We serve of counsel to school foundations, and legal counsel to the Louisiana High School Athletic Association, advising them on policy making and constitutional law issues for high school athletics.
School administrators and system board officials are often faced with a myriad of legal concerns, and Taylor Porter’s education team works with and consults with representatives from our multidisciplinary base of practice areas to ease and resolve those matters.
Representative Experience:
- Education issues, including faculty, staff and student relationships, civil service, procurement, public financing contracts, property, contract confection and negotiation, campus records, research confidentiality, claims under Title VII, Title IX and the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, church/state relations and free speech issues, technology transfer and numerous other public law issues regarding elementary, secondary, and higher education.
- Labor and employment issues, and staffing concerns, including hirings, wage issues, overtime policies, dismissals, and working with administrators to develop manuals and handbooks, including affirmative action plans and sexual harassment policies and procedures, and drug-testing policies and procedures.
- Taxation, financing and bonding issues, including charter school tax-exempt status, filings with the IRS, and private donations, bank loans, and tax credit, and bond opportunities.
- Real estate, land use and facility-use arrangement issues, including negotiating of leases with property owners for commercial real estate and property.
- Construction issues for any new charter schools or renovations to existing charter schools and working with general contractors on various contract concerns.
Taylor Porter provides counsel and representation on matters relating to faculty, staff and student relationships, civil service, procurement, public financing contracts, property, contract confection and negotiation, NCAA regulations, desegregation, campus records, research confidentiality, claims under Title VII, Title IX and the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, church/state relations and free speech issues, technology transfer and numerous other public law issues regarding higher education.
Highlights of this representation include:
- Acting as issuer’s counsel to university for issuances of bonds and other debt totaling more than $200 million.
- Representing the university on employment matters such as discrimination, sexual harassment, and other faculty issues.
- Representing the university/system in the Louisiana higher education desegregation suit originally filed in 1974.
- Counseling the university on corporate sponsorships and representing it in litigation concerning enforcement of collegiate licensing of trademarks and symbols.
- Representing the university in its procurement of goods and services, including representation before appropriate state agencies and the district and appellate courts and Supreme Court of Louisiana.
In addition to practicing education law and representing our clients, Taylor Porter attorneys serve on boards for several schools, nonprofits, and advocacy organizations. Taylor Porter is active in the community, giving back to the local school system. Taylor Porter is a community outreach partner with Volunteers in Public Schools and has participated in several prior projects to assist area Baton Rouge schools.