Today’s colleges and universities face a diverse set of legal challenges. K&L Gates lawyers provide a wide range of legal services to address these challenges, drawing on broad experience gained over decades of counseling institutions of higher education in both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. Our clients range from regional community colleges to large research universities with complex international operations.
Our lawyers take a multidisciplinary approach to higher education issues with knowledge and experience in:
In addition to the range of services listed above, we have identified five areas of focus where our experience differentiates us from other law firms and we are able to deliver specialized services to our college and university clients. The five areas of focus are detailed below.
K&L Gates represents universities, pension funds, foundations, and other exempt organizations and their investment advisors regarding a wide range of legal issues in connection with structuring and managing the investment of endowments and other funds, including providing counsel regarding compliance with the complex tax rules applicable to tax-exempt organizations and negotiating and drafting investment agreements. K&L Gates lawyers assist exempt organizations with:
In addition, K&L Gates lawyers advise exempt organizations regarding IRS and state tax audits; employee benefits (including 403(b) and 457 plans) structuring and compliance; community and economic development projects; social enterprise ventures; public/private partnerships; and private letter ruling requests to the IRS.