Overview

These are not ordinary times for higher education, and the McDonald Hopkins higher education lawyers are no ordinary team.  Enrollment challenges, inflationary pressures, and heightened regulatory oversight are creating new challenges and worsening existing challenges. To tackle those challenges, colleges and universities need dedicated, experienced, and creative lawyers. 

McDonald Hopkins meets that need.

Our higher education team comprises current and former university trustees, who bring hands-on experience in addressing the challenges facing higher education. Moreover, our attorneys have provided legal counsel to private and public institutions across the country on a multitude of issues. From creative insight on complex, multilayered finance projects to refinancings and restructurings, from assistance designing deferred compensation programs and severance packages for education executives to protecting intellectual property, our firm offers a full range of services designed to help your college or university succeed.  We have a track record of success.

We are regularly sought out for our expertise in tax-exempt bond and historic tax credit financing; data privacy and cyber security, including ransomware situations; non-profit formation and compliance issues; and refinancings, restructurings and other financial distress situations. A more complete list of our services to college and university clients includes:

Areas of Concentration

Experience

  • Represented an institution of higher education in all aspects of its $35 million rehabilitation and modernization of a historic building, including development agreements, construction documents, commercial debt financing, obtaining and syndicating federal historic rehabilitation tax credits, state historic rehabilitation tax credits and new markets tax credits, applying for and complying with the requirements of state and federal grants and subsidies, and assisting with capital campaign activities.
  • Represented a university in its efforts to eliminate a large structural operating deficit and refinance and repay significant debt.
  • Represented a college in the renegotiation of bond debt, including the revision of covenants and payment terms.
  • Represented a college in the wind down of operations subsequent to a forced closure.
  • Represented a leading private liberal arts college in the redevelopment of a historic theater for use as a modern commercial movie theater and for educational advancement purposes, financed in part with federal historic rehabilitation tax credits, state historic rehabilitation tax credits, and new markets tax credits.
  • Represented an Ohio university in the complete rehabilitation of a historic dormitory utilizing federal historic rehabilitation tax credits and state historic rehabilitation tax credits to supplement the university’s capital campaign.
  • Advised several colleges and universities on appropriate data breach response, including compliant notification to students, alumni and faculty throughout the United States and around the world.
  • Managed regulatory investigations for several colleges and universities, from state attorneys general and the Office for Civil Rights.
  • Acted as a data breach coach to several large and elite colleges and universities. In addition, assisted them in complying with applicable state and federal privacy statutes.

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