Schools and educational charities

Our charity law and not-for-profit team advises both state funded schools and independent schools (and charities connected with them) on all aspects of their legal requirements.

Whether you are a state-funded or independent school or connected charity, our charity law and not-for-profit team can advise you on all aspects of your legal requirements.

Where needed, we can also draw on support from our highly rated specialist education lawyers within the children and family team.

We can help you with:

• governance and constitutional matters
• commercial contracts including contracts with parents
• school land and estates, including construction and planning
• employment law
• data protection
• admissions, exclusions and other education law issues.

Our highly experienced team has deep knowledge of the sector. We are members of specialist professional networks and have close links with industry bodies such as the Ethical Property Foundation, the leading property advice service for charities.

We work closely with other members of the charity and not-for-profit team to ensure a full understanding of your needs so we can provide an integrated service. The breadth of our practice at Russell-Cooke enables us to draw on expertise in other  areas including planning, property litigation, construction, education and children law.

Industry expertise

Examples of our work in the Education sector include:

• Advising the trustees of a Voluntary Aided School on issues arising from the School on its site being forced to become an Academy
• Amending the constitution of a Multi Academy Trust to change the role played by its sponsor in the governance of the Trust
• Advising on incorporations of the Foundation Trusts of Voluntary Aided Schools to limit trustee liability, including one where the School site is subject to a Private Finance Initiative arrangement
• Advising a foundation school on the legal issues arising from a proposal to sell part of its site for development to finance rebuilding works
• Advising an independent school on a proposal to create an international franchise
• Drafting a new parent contract for an independent school
• Advising an international group of independent schools on governance, intellectual property, data protection and safeguarding
• Advising on governance, constitutional and buildings issues for an independent school following the Steiner model

“Clare’s expertise and experience in charity law has helped us resolve issues which stemmed back over 50 years”
The Legal 500 (2024)

Charges are based on hourly rates plus administrative charges and disbursements but we’re flexible and are happy to discuss charging rates in relation to your budget for a particular piece of work. Where there is unpredictability or for the initial stages of a project, we’ll provide an estimate of your likely legal costs and will update this as your requirements or the circumstances of the work change.

For work where we can predict or clearly anticipate the work to be done, we can also act on a fixed or capped fee basis.

We’re happy to discuss your requirements free of charge and will then provide an estimate of costs.