Patricia Hennessy, co-chair of the firm’s Education Law Group, was featured in Season 5: Episode 141 of the podcast On Record PR where she discussed how education law can serve the diverse needs of children.
An education reform activist and advocate, Pat describes the day in the life of an education lawyer. She often deals with a range of issues from kids showing up to school covered in bruises and bleeding to dealing with a child with a disability figuring out how to regulate behavior in school to dealing with very difficult parents and employees. She notes that the issues can be hard – which are the uglier parts of working with schools. Pat goes on to say she tries to root her practice in what’s the best thing to do for the child and get everybody on the same page in terms of what needs to be done.
Pat said the hardest part about practicing education law is when you see kids being mistreated or just the struggles that some families have when they’re trying to do the best by their children.
Pat noted that she hopes there will be a time when there will be more civil discourse on education reform. She said there were some great opportunities during the pandemic that did start the conversation. Different types of schools were trying to work together in terms of “How do we serve kids now? Are you opening today? What are we doing?” Pat notes that groups would get together and actually have conversations around this topic and that watching that gave her hope.
Pat’s advice for young attorneys or law students interested in education law is to start attending local school board meetings to get an idea of how things work, and the types of topics being discussed. She also recommends volunteering on the board of any school which can provide an inside view of what a school board sees. She points out that as an education lawyer she must be well-versed in almost every area of the law, acting as general counsel for a lot of mini corporations. Pat points out that you must know whole gamut of legal and political things in addition to just the educational aspects. She recommends that law students take a broad swath of topics, including things like contracts and employment law, because they will be torn in a million different directions in terms of what they’re practicing.
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