What's it like to work with F3?
The best way we know to address problems is to teach you how to prevent them. The best way we know to treat everyone in every matter is with respect, compassion and flexibility as we work to find your best path forward in each unique situation.
What can F3 solve for you?
Balancing schools’ rights and responsibilities with students’ rights and responsibilities is always challenging, but getting it right is an important part of achieving your mission. From how you handle the biggest Constitutional issues to how you respond to an individual student’s behavior, F3 attorneys can guide you through the most complex challenges schools face today.
“Students have a right to a safe and inclusive learning environment, free from discrimination and harassment. Our attorneys assist our clients in upholding these rights and prioritizing the educational needs of students while at the same time ensuring that our clients remain in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and policies.”
Melanie Larzul, Partner
F3 has become one of the most respected and called-upon education law firms in both California and the nation in part because our practice is comprehensive – assisting with everything schools and students do, from the business side of running schools to ensuring they are safe, effective places for education to happen. Much of schools’ success depends on everyone’s understanding and adherence to the rights and responsibilities that come with their role. Students are responsible for respecting the institution, the people who are there to help them learn, the processes in place, and each other. They also have the right to expect their rights will be acknowledged and respected. Schools are responsible for even more, including – apart from academic matters – ensuring the safety of their students and knowing their own legal requirements and limitations, while respecting students’ legal rights. Depend on F3 to guide you through any issue, large or small, that touches on student behavior and discipline, student rights, and the responsibilities schools have regarding both.
Tension between the need to maintain necessary order in schools and the legal rights of students has always been with us. The two are inextricably linked, and their interplay has been exacerbated in recent years as we’ve seen both an increase in student misconduct and an increase in laws asserting students’ rights. Schools have pushed hard to maintain attendance and increase graduation rates at the same time misconduct has increased in frequency and severity. More use of independent study programs has brought with it an increase in cheating. Inappropriate social media use such as bullying and sexual harassment have been on the rise, as well as actual physical misconduct, such as defiance, vandalism, assaults, and weapons on campus. Conversely, students have rights regarding due process, representation, appeals, first and fourth amendment rights, and many more, with which schools need to be both aware and compliant. Both for policy development and application and individual occurrences requiring an immediate response, F3 attorneys are ready to advise you on what you may, may not, and should do.
