early a decade ago, I wrote my first article for The Advocate, titled “What the Heck Does a University Lawyer Do?”[1] At the time, I had been practicing at Boise State University for about five years and regularly found myself explaining to other lawyers what, exactly, a university lawyer does. Nearly ten years later, I still get the question.

In that first article, I borrowed an explanation from my then-boss, who described the work of a public university lawyer as one-part education lawyer, one-part state government lawyer, one-part corporate lawyer, and one-part municipal lawyer. I wrote in 2017 that his description was “spot on.”[2] In one sense, it still is.

But after another decade in higher education, I would probably answer the question a little differently—with every lawyer’s favorite answer: it depends.

It depends on the institution. It depends on whether the college is public or private. It depends on whether it is a research university, community college, religious institution, health-sciences institution, residential campus, or some combination of those things. And it depends on how the institution has chosen—or, in some states, is required—to structure its legal services.

The lawyer may work in an Office of General Counsel, for the state attorney general, or in a central university system office serving multiple campuses. Some university lawyers are embedded in particular units, such as athletics, while other institutions rely substantially on outside counsel. And some of the people whose work requires navigating legal and regulatory requirements may have J.D.s—or even be licensed attorneys—while serving the institution in non-lawyer roles.

So rather than asking only what a university lawyer does, it may be more useful to ask who does the legal work in higher education and how that work is structured.

A Broad and Varied Practice

“Higher education law” is a practice area defined less by a particular body of law than by the client.

A college or university is an employer, landlord, property owner, contracting party, technology user, recipient of federal funds, research enterprise, event venue, financial aid administrator, and, frequently, operator of housing, dining, transportation, public safety, recreation, health, and athletics programs. Public colleges and universities are also governmental entities. Some institutions operate hospitals or substantial healthcare programs. Some manage hundreds of millions—or billions—of dollars in assets and revenues.

Unsurprisingly, the legal issues are equally varied.

There are laws uniquely or especially applicable to education: the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Title IX, the Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act, and the Higher Education Act, including the extensive regulatory requirements attached to participation in federal student financial-aid programs.[3]

There are civil rights laws, including Title VI, Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.[4] Universities encounter the same employment, contracts, intellectual property, real estate, immigration, tax, insurance, litigation, and privacy issues as other large organizations.

Public universities add another layer. The First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments regularly find their way into what might otherwise seem like routine campus decisions.[5] In Idaho, public institutions also navigate public records, public contracting, governmental immunity, constitutional limitations applicable to governmental entities, state statutes, and the policies and authority of the Idaho State Board of Education.[6]

Private institutions are not subject to some of that public-law overlay but often have their own governance structures, religious or mission-based considerations, contractual commitments, and regulatory issues. They may also, through institutional policies or contractual commitments, choose to provide students or employees with protections similar to constitutional rights even though the Constitution does not directly require them.[7]

The legal practice supporting a college or university is as varied as the institution itself. That breadth was the central point of my 2017 article, and it remains true. What has changed is the legal landscape, as new laws, regulations, technologies, and business models continue to add new dimensions to an already broad practice.

The Only Constant Is Change

Many of the statutes I wrote about in 2017 remain the backbone of higher education law. Their application, however, is anything but static.

Title IX is an obvious example. In the years since my original article, colleges and universities implemented substantial new federal Title IX regulations in 2020, prepared for another set of regulations issued in 2024, and then adjusted again after a federal court vacated the 2024 regulations nationwide in January 2025. The 2020 regulations are currently back in effect.[8] For university lawyers and Title IX professionals, that kind of regulatory change does not merely require reading a new rule. It can require rewriting policies, revising procedures, retraining employees, changing forms and websites, and advising campus officials about cases already underway.

College athletics provide an even more dramatic example. When I wrote in 2017 about negotiating multi-year coaching agreements, name, image, and likeness—or “NIL” —was not yet part of the everyday vocabulary of college athletics. And universities could not directly compensate student-athletes for participating in college athletics.

That world has fundamentally changed.

The Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in NCAA v. Alston, the rise of NIL compensation, state legislation, antitrust litigation, transfer-rule changes, and ultimately the 2025 settlement of the consolidated antitrust litigation commonly referred to as the House case, have transformed the business and legal structure of intercollegiate athletics.[9] The House settlement  resolved claims challenging NCAA restrictions on student-athlete compensation and created a new framework under which participating Division I institutions may, for the first time, share substantial athletic revenues directly with student-athletes.[10] Questions involving antitrust law, employment law, Title IX, contracts, tax, intellectual property, governance, and NCAA and conference rules now converge in an area that was already complicated.

Technology provides another example of how the practice has changed. Artificial intelligence alone now raises issues involving student privacy, intellectual property, research, accessibility, academic integrity, employment, procurement, cybersecurity, records retention, contracting, and the ethical use of technology. Sometimes the relevant law is new. Just as often, the lawyer’s task is figuring out how an old law applies to something nobody contemplated when the law was written.

That evolution is part of the practice: higher education lawyers must be comfortable with unfamiliar questions and able to apply familiar legal principles in rapidly evolving settings.

Identifying a legal development, however, is only part of the job. Changes in law and regulation can have implications for institutional policies, practices, technology, staffing, training, finances, and operations. University counsel must therefore work closely with colleagues across the institution to understand those implications and translate legal developments into practical advice and workable solutions.

There Is No Standard Office of General Counsel

Just as higher education law does not fit neatly within one substantive practice area, there is no standard model for delivering legal services to colleges and universities.

At many institutions, lawyers are employees of the college or university and work in a traditional Office of General Counsel. That is the model most familiar to me. But it is only one model.

How legal services are structured varies considerably across higher education, and the distinction between public and private institutions often matters. Public institutions may receive legal services through a state attorney general’s office, a centralized university system, an institution-based legal office, or some combination of those arrangements. Private institutions generally have greater flexibility and may employ their own counsel, share legal services among affiliated institutions, rely on outside counsel, or use a combination of approaches. Even among neighboring states, the structures differ: Washington, Oregon, Utah, and Montana each organize legal services for their public higher education institutions somewhat differently.[11]

Idaho, despite its relatively small higher education system, reflects this variety as well. Several institutions maintain their own in-house legal offices, while others operate with smaller internal legal functions or rely more substantially on outside counsel. Idaho’s public colleges and universities also operate within a statewide governance structure in which the State Board of Education, which acts as the board of trustees or regents for the various institutions, receives legal counsel through the Idaho Attorney General’s Office.[12] Institutional counsel therefore may work not only with colleagues within their own universities, but also with attorneys representing the Board and other state entities.

BYU-Idaho provides a different example. Its legal services are part of a multi-institution structure that also serves BYU, BYU-Hawaii, and Ensign College—four affiliated institutions located in three different states.[13] That model illustrates another way institutions can share legal resources across affiliated organizations rather than maintaining a separate, fully independent legal office at each institution.

The organizational chart, however, tells only part of the story. Even within an institution-based legal office, attorneys may function as broad generalists, develop specialized portfolios, or be assigned closely to particular areas of the institution. And the people supporting the institution’s legal and regulatory work extend well beyond attorneys.

Generalists, Specialists, and Everything in Between

The structure of an institution’s legal office also affects the work its lawyers do.

A lawyer in a small office may necessarily be a broad generalist, moving among employment matters, multimillion-dollar contracts, regulatory inquiries, and more. As Idaho State University General Counsel Joan Callahan puts it, “There is no such thing as a typical workday. The unpredictable variety and constant pivoting keep the intellect sharp and make the practice so energizing.”

Community colleges offer another perspective. Their legal practice is no less broad, but their missions and operations differ in important respects from those of larger universities, creating a distinct mix of legal issues. As Andrea Fontaine, General Counsel at the College of Western Idaho, explains, “a community college is embedded in the community it serves,” connecting student needs to the demands of the workforce and local economic growth. That mission, she notes “requires a broadening of the circle of stakeholders, which translates in a legal sense to serving not just the immediate needs of the client but actively considering the interests of a community…Add to this a local governing board comprised of elected officials, and the general counsel for a community college will engage daily in open meeting law issues, public procurement, and strategic business transactions designed to carry an institution through enormous population growth, particularly in the Treasure Valley, where, for example, CWI serves over 36,000 students.”

Larger institutions are more likely to support some degree of specialization within their legal offices. At some of the largest universities nationally, that specialization can extend to full practice groups within the Office of General Counsel. In these more specialized models, attorneys may focus primarily on areas such as employment, research, intellectual property, transactions, student affairs, litigation, or athletics.

Counsel embedded within a particular unit is another variation on the university-lawyer model; still the institution’s lawyer, but close enough to a particular operation to become part of its everyday leadership and decision-making.

At Boise State University, Matt Wilde is a good example. When I wrote my first article, Matt was part of the University’s central Office of the General Counsel and served as General Counsel before moving, in 2025, into a newly created role devoted exclusively to Athletics. Matt remains a member of the Office of General Counsel, but is physically located within Athletics and also serves in a dual business role as Senior Associate Athletic Director for Legal Affairs and Governance.[14] Given what Matt describes as “the rapid legal overhaul of college sports, NCAA eligibility litigation, and mounting pressure to identify new revenue streams,” it makes perfect sense.

Attorneys are also only part of the legal services structure. Paralegals, legal assistants, contract administrators, and other support staff may play substantial roles in areas such as public records, contract administration, litigation support, and legal operations. The mix varies by institution, but attorney headcount alone rarely captures the full legal function. 

Not Every J.D. in Higher Education Is a University Lawyer

There is another group worth mentioning, particularly in a publication read by lawyers: people with law degrees who work in higher education but do not work as attorneys. There are more of them than one might expect.

J.D.s can be found throughout higher education, including athletics administration and compliance, Title IX and civil-rights offices, research administration and compliance, government relations, risk management, human resources, policy, procurement, faculty, and executive leadership. Some previously practiced law and intentionally moved into administrative roles. Others pursued law degrees with interests in areas such as compliance, policy, or administration and later found that higher education offered a natural setting for that work.

The distinction matters. A person does not become institutional counsel simply because the person has a J.D., and communications with a J.D. serving in a business or administrative capacity do not magically become privileged.[15] But a legal education can be extraordinarily useful in roles that involve complex regulations, competing institutional interests, risk assessment, policy interpretation, and governance.

In that sense, the legal footprint of an institution is considerably larger than its Office of General Counsel.

Higher education is full of roles in which legal training is valuable even though practicing law is not the job.

Higher Education Lawyers Beyond the Institution

Institutional counsel are only one part of the higher education legal ecosystem.

Outside counsel routinely provide litigation, labor and employment, bond, intellectual property, immigration, tax, healthcare, investigations, and other specialized services.

For Idaho’s public institutions, other important participants are the attorneys who advise the State Board of Education and its staff. Idaho’s constitutional and statutory structure gives the State Board significant responsibilities for public higher education, so institutional counsel regularly work with those attorneys on matters involving Board policy, approvals, governance, and other statewide issues.[16]

These relationships are another example of how higher education legal work extends beyond an institution’s Office of General Counsel and often requires coordination among attorneys serving different roles within the broader higher education structure.

So, What the Heck Does a University Lawyer Do?

When lawyers ask me what I do, I can still give them Kevin Satterlee’s description from nearly ten years ago: education lawyer, state-government lawyer, corporate lawyer, and municipal lawyer.[17]

But today I would probably tell them that is only the beginning.

Higher education lawyers are generalists and specialists. They work for public universities, private universities, community colleges, religious institutions, state systems, governing boards, attorneys general, and law firms. Their work may be based in an administration building, a system office, the Attorney General’s Office, a department of the institution, or remotely.

And surrounding them are paralegals and other legal support staff, compliance professionals, administrators, policy professionals, risk managers, and other J.D.s doing work shaped every day by law and regulation.

The particular issues change. The organization charts change. Entire new areas of practice emerge.

What does not change is the underlying job: understanding an extraordinarily complicated institution, understanding the law that applies to it, and helping the people who run that institution accomplish its mission while navigating the risks and obligations that come with it.

In 2017, I ended my article by telling readers that they now had an idea of what a university lawyer does.[18]

Nearly ten years later, my answer is a little more lawyerly: It depends.

And if you ask again ten years from now, the answer will probably have changed again.