Practice Contact: David Shelby
david.shelby@taylorporter.com
225.381.0253

Taylor Porter represents elementary schools, charter schools, high schools, and colleges and universities, in all issues pertaining to education law, and also through any legal concerns associated with the operations of schools, including employment and labor, taxation, real estate, land use, construction, and nonprofit board and foundation issues. 

Taylor Porter attorneys represent schools in drafting and revising handbooks, faculty handbooks and contracts and advising on all legal matters from discipline to admissions to hiring. We serve of counsel to school foundations, and legal counsel to the Louisiana High School Athletic Association, advising them on policy making and constitutional law issues for high school athletics. 

School administrators and system board officials are often faced with a myriad of legal concerns, and Taylor Porter’s education law attorneys work with and consult with representatives from our multidisciplinary base of practice areas to ease and resolve those matters. These representative matters can include:

• Education issues, including faculty, staff and student relationships, civil service, procurement, public financing contracts, property, contract confection and negotiation, campus records, research confidentiality, claims under Title VII, Title IX and the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, church/state relations and free speech issues, technology transfer and numerous other public law issues regarding elementary, secondary, and higher education.
• Labor and Employment issues, and staffing concerns, including hirings, wage issues, overtime policies, dismissals, and working with administrators to develop manuals and handbooks, including affirmative action plans and sexual harassment policies and procedures, and drug-testing policies and procedures.
• Taxation, financing and bonding issues, including charter school tax-exempt status, filings with the IRS, and private donations, bank loans, and tax credit, and bond opportunities.
• Real estate, land use and facility-use arrangement issues, including negotiating of leases with property owners for commercial real estate and property
• Construction issues for any new charter schools or renovations to existing charter schools, and working with general contractors on various contract concerns

Taylor Porter's representation of higher education stems back to 1938, as in the wake of the notorious Louisiana Scandals, the acting president of Louisiana State University called upon Taylor Porter to provide "ethically sound legal counsel." Since then, the university has grown enormously as has the Firm's practice in providing the comprehensive legal services required by the state's flagship university system. Taylor Porter provides counsel and representation on matters relating to faculty, staff and student relationships, civil service, procurement, public financing contracts, property, contract confection and negotiation, NCAA regulations, desegregation, campus records, research confidentiality, claims under Title VII, Title IX and the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, church/state relations and free speech issues, technology transfer and numerous other public law issues regarding higher education.

Highlights of this representation include:

• Acting as issuer's counsel to Louisiana State University for issuances of bonds and other debt totaling more than $200 million.
• Representing the University on employment matters such as discrimination, sexual harassment and other faculty issues.
• Representing the LSU System in the Louisiana higher education desegregation suit originally filed in 1974.
• Counseling the University on corporate sponsorships and representing it in litigation concerning enforcement of collegiate licensing of trademarks and symbols.
• Representing the University in its procurement of goods and services, including representation before appropriate state agencies and the district and appellate courts and Supreme Court of Louisiana.

In addition to practicing education law and representing our clients, Taylor Porter attorneys serve on boards for several schools, nonprofits, and advocacy organizations. Taylor Porter is active in the community, giving back to the local school system. Taylor Porter is a community outreach partner with both Volunteers in Public Schools and the East Baton Rouge Parish School System, and has participated in several prior projects to assist area Baton Rouge schools. In March, Taylor Porter, through its Diversity Committee's BUILD program and a partnership with VIPS, kicked off a "Take the Lead" mentoring, reading, and leadership program for Glen Oaks Magnet High School in Baton Rouge. Over the next month, the "Take the Lead" program will guide high school students into becoming leaders and mentors through the reading and discussion of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, published by Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives, and how the literature relates to the world today.

In February 2021, Taylor Porter participated in a VIPS Partners in Education Roundtable Webinar - "Public Education: Then and Now, Is it Still the Path to Freedom?" The webinar, as part of a celebration of Black History Month and the continuation of the VIPS Partners in Education series, celebrated the achievements of African Americans, discussed the role education plays in the advancement of communities, and reflected on the history that African Americans endured to obtain an education, particularly in East Baton Rouge Parish. Last August, Taylor Porter participated in the "First Day Helpers" program to treat teachers and staff to breakfast at White Hills Elementary School in Baker. VIPS organizes the First Day Helpers program every year to welcome back teachers and school staff.

In 2019, Taylor Porter worked with VIPS and White Hills Elementary School for a community outreach project - “Read for Success” - in which the school's fifth graders read five books in the months of September and October, and then visited the law firm for an end of the semester party, and a meet and greet with several of the firm's professionals who discussed their careers, education, and pathway to the workforce.