An analysis of the acquisition, utilization, and compensation of legal services in public school districts in the United States

Our society has become more litigious and so has public education. This growth in litigation began in 1954 with the landmark desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education. Very few guidelines exist for public schools in the acquisition, utilization, and compensation of legal services. The purpose of this study was to help fill this knowledge void by providing data from a national sample of school districts.;This descriptive study used the survey method to gather data. Questionnaires were sent to the superintendents of a random sample of public school districts (stratified by enrollment size) from each state. Responses were summarized and analyzed on the acquisition, utilization, and compensation of legal counsel. Also studied were the superintendents' satisfaction with their districts' legal services and the superintendents' perception regarding effectiveness of such services.;The study revealed that legal services for public schools are costly, acquired from several sources, and utilized for a variety of purposes. School districts used legal services (for advice and/or litigation) an average of 90 times per year. The most costly legal services were for collective bargaining, governance, and teacher dismissal while teacher dismissal and negligence issues generated litigation the most frequently. About one-fifth of the school attorneys had a written job description and about one-fourth had written contracts. This investigation also determined that about three-fourths of the superintendents were satisfied with their districts' system for acquiring and utilizing legal services and about the same percent perceived their districts' system to be effective.