Education

Our Education Practice Group is comprised of a multidisciplinary team of attorneys in our Firm who consult with each other on an ongoing basis to provide litigation, transactional and general business counseling services to academic institutions at the local, regional and national levels.

Educational institutions face unprecedented challenges, and Klehr Harrison’s Education Practice Group has the skill, experience and tenacity to help our clients navigate them. Our attorneys regularly represent a broad range of academic institutions, including large public and private universities, small private colleges and universities, religiously affiliated colleges and universities, diocesan seminaries, medical and other professional schools, and private and other secondary and grade schools. Our attorneys also provided much-needed guidance and advice to our education clients who were broadly affected during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Not only do our attorneys serve as legal counsel to educational institutions, but several also serve as university and college trustees, including serving as chairs of universities’ boards of trustees.

• Lisa A. Lori, President of Marywood University

• William W. Matthews, III, Former Chair of La Salle University Board of Trustees

• William A. Harvey, Former Trustee, Saint Joseph’s University

• Frank M. Correll, Jr., Former Trustee, Ursinus College

Our experience and capabilities include the following:

• Representation in litigation in state and federal courts in substantive matters involving, among other areas, Title IX, employment, intellectual property, commercial matters, breach of contract, invasion of privacy, and misappropriation of trade secrets.
• Conducting and overseeing internal and external investigations involving, among other areas, Title VII, Title IX, program accreditation, faculty, staff and administration misconduct.
• Representation of universities as outside general corporate counsel, includingnegotiating ordinary course commercial contracts.
• Counseling with respect to employment issues, including compliance, policy development, and training, litigation avoidance, faculty contracts and negotiations, employment termination, FMLA, ADA, and student organization activities.
• Counseling with respect to governance and fiduciary responsibilities of board members and others.
• Representation of colleges and universities in real estate and business transactions, including universities’ acquisitions of healthcare facilities, sales of real property and academic and other partnerships.
• Representation of academic executives and professors in compensation matters.
• Negotiation of intellectual property licensing deals for universities.

Representative Transactions:

• Representation of a university in the purchase of a nursing home.
• Representation of the Board of Trustees of a local university in a review of real estate transactions.
• Representation of a university in negotiating and preparing an agreement with an operator of a nursing home owned by the university.
• Representation of a local university in negotiations with vendors.
• Representation of a local university in various land use matters, including before the Zoning Commission and Historical Commission.
• Representation of a religious entity in connection with corporate governance matters.
• Representation of a religious order affiliated with a university in a financing transaction.
• Representation of a university in negotiations related to debt financing.
• Representation of a local high school in connection with employment matters.
• Representation of a local high school in matters before state regulatory agencies.
• Representation of a university in the negotiation of clinical trial agreements.
• Representation of a university in the preparation of intellectual property policies.
• Representation of a university in intellectual property infringement matters.
• Representation of a university in a patent licensing transaction.

Representative Clients: