Whether defending against high-stakes class actions or conducting sensitive internal investigations, O’Melveny is the law firm of choice for colleges and universities facing high-profile controversies with potentially damaging ramifications.

We offer college and university clients a full suite of services, including counseling and policy advice, internal investigations, representation in governmental investigations and proceedings, litigation, and communications management. Our interdisciplinary team of litigation, employment, appellate, and criminal defense lawyers with high-level government experience help colleges and universities tackle a host of issues, including the following.

Title IX and Clery Act
We advise on Title IX and Clery Act compliance and represent academic institutions before the Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, and Office of Federal Student Aid, as well as in Title IX federal and state court proceedings.

Policies Regarding Student Athletes
We offer counsel on complying with the array of federal, state and NCAA regulations regarding student athletics.

Admissions and Financial Aid Statistics
We perform internal investigations regarding the alleged misreporting of admissions and financial aid statistics. In addition, we manage communications with the press, internal and external communities, third-party private rating institutions, and government regulators regarding these investigations and their results.

Intellectual Property and Patents
We advise on protecting their intellectual property rights and represent them in litigating patent disputes.

Labor and Employment
We offer counsel on the entire spectrum of labor and employment laws, and represent them in wage-and-hour, high-stakes discrimination, whistleblower, harassment, wrongful termination and retaliation litigation.

Transactions
We represent colleges and universities, investors, and financial institutions in financings, acquisitions, and other transactions.

General Litigation
We represent colleges and universities in a wide range of litigation, including defending our clients against tort claims and class actions.

Investigations
Our multi-disciplinary team performs investigations—which may include interviewing witnesses, reviewing relevant documents, coordinating with law enforcement and government agencies conducting their own investigations, and preparing reports—regarding a range of sensitive issues, including allegations of campus sexual assault and their responses to these allegations, the alleged misreporting of admissions and financial aid statistics, and faculty misconduct, among others.

Brief in Support of Affirmative Action

O’Melveny filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court on behalf of a coalition of 8 leading public research universities in Fisher v. University of Texas in support of the University of Texas’s use of race in its admissions program. Read

California Institute of Technology

O'Melveny has represented California Institute of Technology in multiple matters, including a patent trial victory over Caltech’s DNA sequencer and a high-profile wrongful death case involving the suicide of a Caltech student. Read

Corinthian Colleges, Inc

O’Melveny represented Corinthian Colleges in the sale to Zenith Education Group, a nonprofit Delaware corporation, of 53 of its Everest and WyoTech campuses for a purchase price of US$24 million. Read

Liberal Arts College

We represented a liberal arts college in an internal investigation into the College’s key admissions-related statistics after the College discovered that a senior administrative officer had misreported aggregated admission statistics. Read

NCAA

O’Melveny provides strategic advice and counseling to the NCAA on a range of legal and policy issues and is currently representing the organization in McCants v. NCAA, a class action brought against the NCAA and the University of North California by former UNC student athletes. Read

Public and Private Universities

O’Melveny is counseling several public and private universities in connection with their handling of student reports of sexual assault. Read

Udacity

O’Melveny advised online teaching start-up Udacity on in its US$105 million Series D financing by Bertelsmann, Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and other investors; the financing valued the company at more than US$1 billion. Read

Underwriters

We represented syndicates of underwriters in connection with the initial structuring of each of the University of California’s General Revenue debt, Limited Project Revenue debt and Medical Center Pooled Revenue debt programs and in subsequent issues under each such program, totaling over US$9 billion under these three programs. Read

University of Virginia Board of Visitors

O’Melveny served as independent counsel to the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors in connection with the investigation into the University’s handling of an allegation of sexual assault as reported in an article published by Rolling Stone magazine. Read
    • California Institute of Technology
    • Claremont McKenna College
    • DeVry
    • NCAA
    • University of California
    • Occidental College
    • Scripps Colleges
    • University of Virginia
    • Claremont Graduate University