Higher Education

Phillips Lytle has extensive experience in all types of municipal bonds, grants, private finance and loan restructuring transactions. Our team has successfully represented private colleges and universities in multimillion-dollar tax-exempt bond transactions and New York State Higher Education Capital Matching Grants. This financing can be used by our clients in the construction and equipment of student housing and other projects. Our Tax attorneys are ready to advise clients on issues associated with public offerings, real estate transactions, tax disputes, obtaining and maintaining tax-exempt status, and tax issues related to fundraising.

Our goal is to avoid litigation for our clients whenever possible, however, we have the necessary experience to assist our clients when litigation is necessary. Our Business Litigation attorneys have experience to represent educational institutions in state court, federal court, arbitrations and administrative proceedings. We have represented educational institutions regarding faculty grievances and union contract disputes, conducted internal investigations and defended against government investigations, including Title IX claims before the Office of Civil Rights and health care allegations before the New York State Department of Health.

Phillips Lytle is regularly called on by our higher education clients to provide advice on corporate legal issues, faculty and staff issues, financing initiatives (including how they may impact tax-exempt status), strategic alliances, affiliation agreements, and investment and partnership opportunities with technology and start-up companies. We draft bylaws, review and revise contracts between schools and third-party providers (e.g., vendors and industry partners), and work with board members and management to prepare legal compliance and code of ethics programs.

We regularly participate in board meetings, counseling trustees, board members and executives on minimizing potential liability exposure (including review of insurance and preparation of indemnification agreements). Our Corporate and Business Law Team has extensive experience in representing colleges and universities in connection with the acquisition of other institutions and educational institution property, and has served as special counsel for governance issues in connection with institutional mergers.

We understand that the higher education arena is increasingly competitive, and that the reputation of an organization is vital to its success. Phillips Lytle’s Crisis Response and Management Team is available to provide advice to minimize the public effect of any crisis–from government investigations and labor strikes, to student conduct concerns, and technology and data breaches. It is critical to be prepared, which is why we have the ability to deploy experienced attorneys at a moment’s notice to implement the proper emergency response protocols. Should you have a crisis, our team is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to handle the most time-sensitive situations. We understand the importance of immediate and appropriate response to a broad range of circumstances; our team is ready and available to assist our clients. Our attorneys can be reached at 1-866-812-5116.

Our Data Privacy and Cybersecurity attorneys have real-world business experience creating and implementing data security, record retention and destruction, and storage/access policies. We have assisted educational institutions with internal investigations regarding data breaches where students’ personally identifiable information (PII) was accessible by unauthorized parties. We assist in minimizing the breach and put measures in place to prevent additional third parties from gaining access to PII.

We provide advice in these situations about required notifications to the affected parties as well as to the appropriate government agencies. We have also analyzed wireless, internet access and social media policies with a focus on limiting liability that could be imputed to colleges, universities or secondary educational institutions.

In today’s competitive market, colleges and universities need to review and update their benefits and compensation structure to best fit the direction of their institution. Our attorneys represent colleges and universities in updating tax-deferred annuity/403(b) plans, advise on compliance with Internal Revenue Service and ERISA regulations and requirements, and provide advice about employee health and welfare benefit plan design changes and operational compliance issues. Our Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation attorneys work with our Corporate and Business Law, Securities and Capital Markets, Tax, and Labor and Employment attorneys to design executive compensation plans that incentivize maximum impact and assist in reporting these arrangements for corporate governance and securities law purposes.

For projects requiring environmental review, Phillips Lytle has experience representing educational institutions regarding due diligence associated with real property acquisition, compliance audits and environmental compliance programs. Our Environmental Law attorneys work with many education clients on campus improvement and/or expansion projects involving zoning and land use permitting, historical consultation with New York’s State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), environmental permitting and environmental impact reviews pursuant to New York State’s Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), and challenges to zoning issues in Article 78 proceedings. We also represent schools in licensing issues with energy and power authorities.

Our Health Care attorneys represent virtually every segment of today’s health care marketplace. With that knowledge and experience, we assist educational institutions with medical and health-related affiliation agreements, HIPAA-compliant policies and procedures, hospital and medical center student internships, medical staffing or licensing issues, and other New York State privacy laws and regulations.

Phillips Lytle offers a full range of services to secure, defend and enforce the intellectual property rights of our education clients, whether it’s patents, trade secrets, service marks or copyrights. To that end, we have represented research universities and institutions with respect to a broad range of intellectual property issues, including preparing, filing and prosecuting domestic and foreign patent applications in multiple technical disciplines.

We have experience negotiating and drafting a wide range of licensing and technology transfer agreements for our education clients, including research agreements, option agreements, license agreements, confidentiality agreements and material transfer agreements. Moreover, we regularly counsel clients with respect to patent scope and associated design issues, as well as render non-infringement opinions and conduct freedom-to-operate studies.

Our Labor and Employment attorneys provide daily advice to institution presidents, administrators and university attorneys with respect to faculty and student issues ranging from faculty tenure disputes to student disciplinary concerns.

We represent education clients in labor arbitrations, collective bargaining negotiations, contract administration, faculty/student association matters, NLRB proceedings, and LMRA litigation. We have extensive experience in defending colleges, universities and secondary education institutions against government investigations and private charges of state and federal discrimination, wage and hour, safety and constitutional violations, and wrongful discharge involving, but not limited to, Title VII, Title IX, ADA, Section 504, ADEA, FMLA, FLSA and OSHA compliance.

We regularly draft and provide advice on faculty, staff and student handbooks, and assist our education clients in imposing and defending terminations and disciplinary decisions. We have provided advice and represented clients before the New York State Department of Education, United States Department of Education and educational accrediting associations.

The members of Phillips Lytle’s Not-For-Profit Team are devoted to assisting our education clients with all aspects of legal, corporate and tax regulatory compliance. College and university trustees and officers require an understanding of their duties and specific requirements under the New York Education Law and the New York Not-For-Profit Corporation Law to ensure that their organizations carry out their educational purposes; appropriately utilize gifts, grants, endowments or other restricted funds; and discharge their duties in good faith while acting in the best interests of the institution. Our attorneys regularly counsel clients about their obligations and corporate housekeeping, provide advice about proposed courses of action, and assist in developing and implementing conflict of interest policies and codes of conduct or ethics.

Our Project Development and Real Estate attorneys are regularly involved in college and university construction, development and expansion projects. Whether it’s assisting with property acquisition, preparing forms and leases, or zoning/land use permitting, our attorneys have experience in all phases of development.

We have assisted schools in community outreach to address concerns about proposed expansion projects, and our attorneys regularly work with local developers who build-to-suit for college campuses or who have obtained construction projects through the public bidding process. We also have extensive experience in the collaboration of colleges and universities with start-up companies under START-UP NY, including the negotiation and creation of lease documents for multimillion-dollar high-tech facilities.