Education and NonProfits

Lawyers with Education and Nonprofit Law Focus

Education and Non-Profit

Lawyers with Education and Nonprofit Focus

Overview

Our experience in education and nonprofit law focuses on the corporate, regulatory, legislative, liability, tax and employment aspects of private secondary and postsecondary education, as well as nonprofit organizations throughout New Hampshire and northern New England.

Since 1987, Rath and Young has represented many of the premier educational institutions in the U.S., as well as a long line of prominent charitable organizations. Our Concord and Boston office attorneys have extensive experience working with nonprofit organizations.

We work on a wide range of matters for schools, colleges and charitable organizations, including:

  • Business advice and corporate governance
  • Education and employment law, including Title IX
  • Intellectual property and licensing
  • Liability protection and litigation
  • Regulatory and legislative advocacy
  • Tax exempt financing and tax litigation

Known for our leadership and community service, Rath and Young lawyers have volunteered countless hours of service over the years to dozens of educational and other nonprofit boards, ranging from the University System of New Hampshire and the N.H. Historical Society to the United Way, Concord Hospital and various community mental health centers. Many of our attorneys have experience as leaders of state agencies, and along with our strong government relations affiliation and network, this practical experience enables us to understand and anticipate the impact of economic and legal changes in the nonprofit field and to help clients cost effectively manage these issues.

Our attorneys provide essential and specialized services to a variety of education and nonprofit clients. Our group is supported daily by our corporate, government relations, litigation, tax, regulatory and employment group attorneys in order to address the full range of our clients’ needs.

Corporate and Transactional Advice

We provide a full range of support for nonprofits, including overall corporate support, strategic advice, tax advice, and practical advice on shifting risk by contract.

  • Provide corporate governance advice to independent schools and nonprofit boards of trustees.
  • Successfully represented the nation’s oldest outdoor recreation and conservation organization in clarifying application of New Hampshire’s Meals and Rooms Tax Exemption for nonprofit organizations.
  • Serve as corporate and compliance counsel to nonprofit health care facilities and hospitals.
  • Serve as general counsel to a small university press in drafting and negotiating contracts with authors, photographers and distributors.
  • Counsel nonprofit organizations on all aspects of the employment relationship, including hiring, discipline and termination practices, leaves of absence, OSHA compliance, accommodation of disabled employees and students.
  • Litigation to enforce confidentiality, non-compete and trade secret agreements.
  • Review and update employment handbooks, policies and procedures that take into consideration the laws and needs of particular nonprofit sectors.
  • Conduct training for nonprofit administrators, school faculty, employees and students on how to prevent unlawful harassment, hazing and bullying;
  • Successfully represented nonprofit public health facility before city officials and in court to ensure the opening of a new facility.
  • Expanded health care services for uninsured New Hampshire families through a commercial transaction for one of the state’s largest nonprofit community health centers.
  • Assisted nonprofit hospitals with regulatory compliance, encompassing a broad range of federal and state regulations including privacy and security, fraud and abuse, antitrust, EMTALA, certificate of need and licensing.
  • Assisted in the creation and ongoing grant-making operations of a private foundation dedicated to the health of New Hampshire residents, funded by the sale of the assets of a nonprofit health insurance company to a for-profit company.

Environmental Due Diligence

  • Advise renewable energy clients on how to successfully conduct an All Appropriate Inquiry before it acquires an interest (leasehold or otherwise) in real estate.  Advise of defenses to liability under CERCLA and state laws and guide clients through complex local, state, and federal environmental laws that may be triggered by the purchase or development.
  • Ongoing advice to a national solar development company on due diligence necessary to meet the All Appropriate Inquiry standard for Bona Fide Prospective Purchaser defenses to environmental liability under CERCLA, RCRA, and various state liability laws, in connection with the acquisition of solar projects located throughout the U.S.
  • Reviewed multiple Phase I and Phase II Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) Reports as part of due diligence in advance of the acquisition of an investor owned utility with more than 200 parcels of land and advised as to the consequences to the transaction of potential Recognized Environmental Conditions (“RECs”).
  • Reviewed environmental permits, approvals, conditions and ESA Reports as part of the environmental due diligence in the acquisition by a Canadian investor of several hydro projects located throughout the Northeast to maximize defenses to environmental liability.

Legislation and Regulation

We closely follow both the economic and the legal changes in the field to anticipate and understand the needs of our clients and to provide efficient solutions in compliance with multiple federal and state regulations. We have extensive experience and relationship with both federal and state regulators. If legislation is the best way to solve a problem, we work closely with our government relations group to achieve a legislative solution for our client.

  • Represented a coalition of educational institutions to protect and preserve this tax-exempt status of nonprofit organizations in New Hampshire.
  • Represented a higher education consortium to create New Hampshire’s “Section529”college savings plan, thereby helping families in New Hampshire and throughout the U.S. to have access to a higher education
  • Consultant for an association of nonprofit organizations hired to create an educational program designed to influence the N.H. “First in the Nation” presidential primary process and to raise the visibility of the nonprofit sector in the state and national political dialogue.
  • Provided strategic and public affairs guidance to a private school to resolve regulatory review of executive compensation concerns.
  • Increased access to medication for low-income New Hampshire residents through the creation of the N.H. Medication Bridge Program.
  • Represented a consortium of colleges to preserve New Hampshire’s Meals and Rooms Tax Exemptions for schools.
  • Helped a nonprofit hospital to change state law so that it could qualify as a Critical Access Hospital with higher reimbursement rates under federal law
  • Represented the providers of psychiatric services to patients at the New Hampshire Hospital and to the community for the renewal of a unique public-private partnership between the State of New Hampshire and community providers.
  • Secured approvals from the New Hampshire Health Services Planning and Review Board for major nonprofit health facility projects.