Education and Training
We act for more than 120 state education departments, independent schools, universities, TAFEs, research institutions, early childhood education centres, and registered training and group training organisations.
We have a deep understanding of the commercial and operations issues faced by education institutions and businesses – such as reputation management, stakeholder pressure, attracting talent, cyber security and data protection, and securing funding – as well as the legal issues that arise through the management of both a staff and student body.
We have considerable experience advising on, and operating within, strictly regulated environments. We have significant expertise in relation to higher education regulation and vocational education regulation, and enforcement actions undertaken by regulators. The team also has considerable experience in administrative law, particularly in relation to statutory interpretation, as a result of our work with many public sector organisations.
We also understand the legal issues that arise through the management of both a staff and student body, negotiation of commercial agreements and commercialisation and protection of intellectual property (IP).
Many of our lawyers have personal involvement within the education sector, through director and board positions, enabling our people to better understand the sector’s toughest challenges and build capabilities to help solve them.
Our expertise in the education sector includes:
- Advising on all aspects of employment law, including general employment and HR issues, termination of employment and redundancies, employment related litigation, industrial relations including issues arising from enterprise agreements and bargaining, union disputes, restraint of trade, employment contracts, restructuring, employment aspects of corporate transactions, discrimination, bullying and harassment, contractor/contingent worker issues, workplace investigations, immigration and workplace health and safety.
- Advising on the full range of cyber security and data protection issues including regulatory and compliance obligations, cloud outsourcing and privacy terms and conditions, review of procurement practices and supplier agreements for protection against third party privacy and cyber security risk, management and employee training programs, privacy policies and documents, incident response plans, data transfer deeds, complaints for breaches of privacy and dealing with data breaches.
- Advising on general commercial issues, including structuring and negotiations of agreement documentation, general contract preparation, confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements and standard terms and conditions, and corporate governance.
- Advising on intellectual property issues, including copyright and trade mark applications, infringements and oppositions, licensing.
- Delivering regulatory, administrative law and corporate governance services to higher education providers, including duties of directors and Councillors, conflicts of interest management, executive remuneration and compensation, financial reporting and ASIC and ACNC notifications and other filings.
- Advising on property issues, including acquisitions and disposals, building and construction projects, leasing and rates and land tax advice.
- Advising on a wide range of litigation and disputes including commercial litigation, corporation law disputes, insolvency and restructuring, defending class action proceedings, advising directors and boards of directors, regulatory proceedings including ASIC and ACCC investigations and examinations, taxation disputes, and negligence claims.
- Providing strategic advice to education clients on compliance with the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), including advice on the National Employment Standards and modern award application, and the preparation of employment contracts for all levels of employees, including performance based contracts and senior executive contracts.
- Representing education clients in Disciplinary Appeals Board matters and in the Fair Work Commission in unfair dismissal claims, general protections claims, redundancy disputes and union disputes; and in the Federal Court of Australia with regard to breaches of enterprise agreement claims.
- Advising on, and assisting with, bullying, discrimination and sexual harassment claims, arising from both staff and student complaints, including engaging investigators under client legal privilege and advising on investigation report findings.
- Advising various universities (NASDAQ listed) on requirements surrounding their visa needs for the Temporary Skilled Shortage (TSS), training, research, student, and short term specialised skilled visas.
- Advising a university on its legal risk under privacy legislation following the unauthorised disclosure of student data and the use of that student data for certain marketing purposes. In providing our advice, we also considered the university’s exposure under contractual and equitable obligations.
- Advising on the merger of two Victorian group training organisations, including providing corporate and general insurance advice. Our corporate advice covered matters including strategic advice and direction, legal due diligence, preparation of a detailed project plan, statutory compliance advice and assistance with implementation of the merger including preparation of all required member and board resolutions.
- Acting for universities, TAFEs and independent schools in numerous property and construction matters, including site acquisitions, preparation of construction documents, disputes in relation to delay, loss and expense, and design and/or construction defects, construction insurance related-issues, and management of cultural heritage on construction sites.
- Acting for Council of Australian University Directors of IT (CAUDIT). We have drafted and negotiated technology procurement agreements on behalf of CAUDIT (whose members comprise most universities in Australia and New Zealand) and assisted in negotiations with major vendors including Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, VMware and others.
