Getting and retaining a lawyer doesn’t mean you are guilty of a crime. It means you are wise. We often equate legal counsel with wrong doing. There are many times that educational professionals need legal counsel which have nothing to do with criminal activity nor wrong doing. In the Boy Scouts, we used to say, “Be prepared.” That is exactly what you are doing by having a good lawyer. Here are some reasons in education when you might need one:
- Signing your any contract. ALWAYS have your lawyer read your contract before signing it. If there is a question, have your lawyer speak directly to the school system. One year, I witnessed our local school system remove our specified work hours from the contract. Everyone signed it. We thought it was just an update, and trusted the system to continue as normal. Nope. The next few months would see gobs of unpaid overtime requested in the form of meetings and trainings. It was only then that most became aware of the intent of that small change. You don’t have the right to collectively bargain, but you have every right to negotiate your own personal contract should the need arise.
- Dealing with Human Resources. Be careful. There are some great HR departments. There are some which are not. If in doubt, assume their intentions are not completely above board. As a teacher, if you do this job long enough, it is inevitable that you will be sitting in front of HR for any number of reasons. I always recommend having a conversation with your lawyer(or bringing them with you) before having any meeting with HR. Watch your back.
- You may have to take legal action against your system, admin, another teacher, or even a student. If you are a subordinate and your superior has taken advantage of you, I highly recommend that you seek legal counsel and potentially damages. If you have a student who has threatened you, it is well within your rights to seek a restraining order. There might be a salary dispute. I have witnessed our local system refuse to pay employees due to paperwork issues.
- You might need to leave your job in the middle of the year, and breech your contract. That can get sideways really fast. Preferably, talk to your lawyer about how to write your notice, and talk about how long you need to work(after your notice has been sent) as it is written in your contract. Often systems will waive some of that mandatory time if you are professional in your approach. Plus, if they value your expertise, most systems won’t want to burn a bridge with you…and your approach should be the same. A good lawyer will help you sever that contract in the least damaging way.
I am sure there are dozens of other reasons to need legal counsel. I STRONGLY recommend that you find a lawyer who will help you along the way. Many local lawyers, if they have done business with your school system, will not be able to represent you. It is a clever strategy that school systems use to protect themselves from getting sued. They employee the region’s best lawyers in an attempt to create a conflict of interest for future prospective legal cases. It works. Try finding a special education lawyer in the TRI region. Most cannot represent you, because they already have a conflict of interest due to having worked with most schools systems.
One thing to be careful of…I know many of you are part of education groups such as NEA and the like. They have great liability policies. Most promise legal counsel. A lot of that legal counsel is in bed with local school systems. They will sell you out in a heartbeat. You need your own lawyer. I think it is generally wise to seek legal counsel not in the district that you work, especially if it is a small district. If you need to file something in court, you can use a local lawyer. You really want to be able to ask things which won’t end-up in lunch discussions in small communities.
In closing, Jaime Escalante was a brilliant math teacher. He dared to teach his basic math students…are you ready for this….calculus! They excelled. They thrived. His story is an amazing story of resilience and belief in students who had been forgotten. All of them passed their advanced placement exams. They were so proficient that his students were accused of cheating. They were made to retest. They passed again. Stand and Deliver is a fantastic movie based on that story. It had a great impact on my decision to go into teaching. A great lawyer, in my opinion, would have prevented the state establishment from doing that in my opinion.
Pro Tip: You get what you pay for. I have been part of a process(not me!) in which we successfully defended someone who had been sued for millions of dollars. I recommended that outside lawyers (with a strong resume’ specific to the case) be hired. It was pricey, but they won proceedings right out of the gate which had immediate and positive impacts on the case moving forward. It was money well spent.
Bonus Pro Tip: Don’t wait to find a lawyer until you need one. As soon as you step foot in a classroom, you should have a lawyer at your disposal. Preferably find a lawyer who has contract experience. Again, a national or regional firm (not based in your district) is preferred. This is important. You want a lawyer who represents only you – not the district, not an educational group, not the state, etc. They need to represent you as an individual.
