External Legal Counsel for Schools

Ongoing legal advice for school leaders

Schools make decisions with legal consequences every day.

Employment issues. Student matters. Parent complaints. Governance. Privacy. Safeguarding. Policies. Regulatory compliance. Section 83C.

Most of these issues do not initially require a major legal matter.

They require a Principal or senior leader to be able to pick up the phone, speak with a lawyer who understands schools and obtain practical advice before making a decision.

Wilding & Co Lawyers provides NSW non-government schools with an External Legal Counsel service for a fixed annual retainer based on student enrolments.

The service is designed to give school leaders ready access to legal advice throughout the year without employing an in-house lawyer.

Two levels of support

Standard External Legal Counsel

$36 per enrolled student per year + GST

Includes approximately:

1 hour of legal advisory time for every 16 enrolled students each year.

Extended External Legal Counsel

$72 per enrolled student per year + GST

Includes approximately:

1 hour of legal advisory time for every 8 enrolled students each year.

The Extended service provides approximately double the annual advisory time for double the annual retainer.

Your advisory allocation is available across the year and does not need to be used evenly each month.

Legal advice when your school needs it

The service is designed around a simple idea:

Get legal advice before the issue becomes a legal problem.

Your Principal and nominated senior leaders can contact us primarily by telephone or email when legal issues arise in the ordinary operation of the school.

We can help answer questions such as:

  • Can we do this?

  • What are our legal obligations?

  • What does our existing policy require?

  • Is this process legally compliant?

  • Are there procedural fairness issues?

  • Can we provide this information to a parent?

  • Does this matter need to be reported?

  • Are we approaching this employment issue correctly?

  • Does this expenditure raise a section 83C issue?

  • Does our policy adequately deal with this situation?

  • Does this issue now require a separate legal matter?

The purpose of the service is to make legal advice part of ordinary school decision-making rather than something obtained only after a dispute has developed.

What can you use the service for?

Your annual advisory allocation can be used for routine legal advice concerning the operation of your school.

Governance

Advice concerning:

  • governance obligations;

  • delegations and decision-making authority;

  • conflicts of interest;

  • procedural requirements;

  • legal issues affecting proposed decisions; and

  • responsibilities of school leadership.

Regulatory compliance

Advice concerning:

  • NESA requirements;

  • education legislation;

  • school registration and accreditation;

  • regulatory obligations affecting non-government schools; and

  • general legal compliance.

Section 83C and not-for-profit obligations

Advice concerning:

  • section 83C of the Education Act 1990 (NSW);

  • reasonable market value;

  • expenditure of school funds;

  • related-party transactions;

  • procurement considerations; and

  • other not-for-profit compliance issues.

Employment and workplace matters

Day-to-day advice concerning:

  • staff management;

  • performance management;

  • disciplinary processes;

  • workplace complaints;

  • employment obligations;

  • leave and entitlements;

  • procedural fairness;

  • interpretation of employment policies; and

  • other routine workplace issues.

Students and parents

Advice concerning:

  • enrolment;

  • student discipline;

  • parent complaints;

  • student management;

  • procedural fairness;

  • communications with parents;

  • student welfare; and

  • other legal issues arising in the relationship between the school, students and families.

Child safeguarding

Advice concerning:

  • child-safe obligations;

  • mandatory reporting;

  • reportable conduct;

  • allegations involving staff;

  • safeguarding processes; and

  • other child-protection issues.

Privacy and information management

Advice concerning:

  • privacy obligations;

  • student and staff information;

  • records;

  • access to information;

  • disclosure;

  • confidentiality; and

  • information sharing.

Policies

Advice concerning:

  • interpretation of existing policies;

  • application of policies to particular situations;

  • whether a policy adequately deals with an issue;

  • legal requirements that should be reflected in a policy;

  • identifying policies requiring review; and

  • guidance on policy development and implementation.

The External Legal Counsel service provides policy advice and guidance.

Substantial policy drafting or redrafting is separately scoped.

Complaints and risk

Advice to assist your school to:

  • assess complaints;

  • identify legal issues;

  • determine an appropriate process;

  • manage procedural fairness;

  • understand escalation requirements; and

  • reduce legal risk before a dispute develops.

Pricing and annual advisory time

Both the annual fee and the amount of included advisory time scale with student enrolment.

Enrolment Standard fee Standard hours Extended fee Extended hours

100 $3,600 + GST 7 hours $7,200 + GST 13 hours

150 $5,400 + GST 10 hours $10,800 + GST 19 hours

250 $9,000 + GST 16 hours $18,000 + GST 32 hours

380 $13,680 + GST 24 hours $27,360 + GST 48 hours

500 $18,000 + GST 32 hours $36,000 + GST 63 hours

750 $27,000 + GST 47 hours $54,000 + GST 94 hours

1,000 $36,000 + GST 63 hours $72,000 + GST 125 hours

1,300 $46,800 + GST 82 hours $93,600 + GST 163 hours

1,500 $54,000 + GST 94 hours $108,000 + GST 188 hours

The allocation applies across the year. Schools can use more time during periods when additional advice is required and less at other times. Unused hours can be refunded to stay compliant with section 83C of the Education Act NSW.

Standard or Extended?

Standard

The Standard service is designed for schools that want regular access to legal advice for day-to-day operational, governance and compliance matters.

$36 per student + GST

Approximately 1 hour of advisory time for every 16 students each year.

Extended

The Extended service is designed for schools that expect their leadership team to use legal advice more frequently as part of ordinary decision-making.

$72 per student + GST

Approximately 1 hour of advisory time for every 8 students each year.

It may suit larger schools, schools experiencing significant organisational change, or schools that want legal advice more closely integrated into management decisions.

What is not included?

The External Legal Counsel service is intended for routine advisory work.

It does not include substantive legal work such as:

  • workplace investigations;

  • child-safety investigations;

  • litigation, tribunal or court proceedings;

  • substantial policy drafting or redrafting;

  • drafting contracts, agreements, deeds or other substantial legal documents;

  • major employment disputes;

  • extensive document reviews;

  • lengthy formal written advices;

  • significant regulatory investigations or enforcement matters;

  • property transactions;

  • major commercial transactions;

  • major governance or restructuring projects;

  • board meeting attendance;

  • management meeting attendance;

  • onsite attendance; or

  • other substantial discrete legal matters.

If a routine enquiry develops into a substantive legal matter, we will identify that issue and discuss the scope and cost of the additional work before proceeding. If you have significant unused hours, we can credit those against the substantive matter too.

A lawyer who gets to know your school

The value of an ongoing legal relationship is not simply having someone available to answer a question.

Over time, we become familiar with your school's:

  • leadership structure;

  • policies;

  • governance framework;

  • operations;

  • risk profile;

  • regulatory environment; and

  • approach to managing legal issues.

That means your leadership team does not need to explain the school from the beginning every time an issue arises.

You have access to lawyers who understand both the law and the context in which the school operates.

Why Wilding & Co Lawyers?

Legal issues within schools rarely sit neatly within one area of law.

An employment issue may also involve safeguarding obligations.

A parent complaint may involve privacy, procedural fairness and governance.

A student issue may raise enrolment, discrimination and regulatory questions.

A policy issue may involve employment law, child safety and compliance.

Our role is to help school leaders identify those issues early and make decisions with a clear understanding of their legal obligations and risks.

Principal Ben Wilding worked as a secondary school teacher before practising law and has subsequently worked in senior legal, governance, risk and compliance roles within the education sector.

Our advice is focused not simply on what the law says, but on how legal obligations operate within the practical environment of a school.

Need a broader outsourced compliance function?

External Legal Counsel is designed for schools that primarily need ongoing access to legal advice.

Some schools require a broader outsourced function involving:

  • compliance frameworks;

  • risk registers;

  • compliance work programs;

  • policy development;

  • implementation projects;

  • governance systems; and

  • ongoing risk and compliance oversight.

For those schools, our External Risk, Compliance & Legal Function provides a more embedded service.

Button: External Risk, Compliance & Legal Function

Legal advice before the problem gets bigger

Not every issue requires a lengthy written advice.

Sometimes a Principal needs a ten-minute telephone call before making a decision.

Sometimes a short email confirming the school's obligations is enough.

Sometimes the most important advice is that a routine matter is becoming more serious and should now be separately scoped.

The External Legal Counsel service gives your leadership team someone to call when they need to ask:

Talk to us about your school

Contact Wilding & Co Lawyers to discuss External Legal Counsel support for your school or our risk and compliance service.

02 9958 6603