Legal services

This is a service for all schools and academies. Our team of lawyers and support staff provides an effective and efficient in house legal service for your school unmatched in the private sector. Our highly qualified staff have significant knowledge of the problems schools can face. We are therefore ideally placed to help you avoid issues, and help you solve them where they do arise. Legal Services understand the legal framework which academies operate within, and can provide advice on day to day legal issues.

Service description

• Advice to schools on many aspects of educational law. We can advise on challenges to the actions of the school or governing body.*
• Advice to schools on pupil exclusion issues. Including appeals and hearings*
• Advice on preparation, drafting and variation of contracts up to 1 hour of advice and drafting.
• Advising on parental dispute matters – this may include immediate guidance on emergency matters. We will guide you through the process and policies to be followed.
• Disturbance/nuisance/trespass on school premises. We will recommend options for formal/informal actions.
• General debt advice.
• Persons of Significant Control – Does your organisation meet the criteria to submit PSC forms to Companies House? We can help with completing registers and confirmation statements.
• Planning advice, such as advice on an extension or change to the school premises.*
• Property advice: Boundary issues, disposals, purchases, general landlord and tenant matters such as licences and leases.*
• Litigation support – this includes bringing and defending claims for issues such as health and safety, contract disputes, boundary disputes and anti social behaviour issues. We can represent you at court or panels (please note: additional costs may apply). Where it is necessary to instruct Counsel, we will facilitate this in
  consultation with you and where possible, seek to agree appropriate fees on your behalf.

If the service you require is not listed please contact us for further information.

Benefits to your school

• Access to advice from skilled practitioners covering a wide range of matters.
• As a subscriber to an annual package you will have access to advice at a rate which is considerably less than currently available in most of the private sector.
• Schools and academies are operating in an ever more complex legal environment. We provide ready access to professional legal advice.
• Suitable legal advice at the outset will usually result in the avoidance of costly litigation at a later stage.

* Where a conflict of interest may arise legal services will be unable to offer advice.