Education Law Services in California

Educational institutions in California answer to more regulators than almost any other sector. A private postsecondary school may simultaneously hold approval from the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education, accreditation from a recognized agency such as WASC or ACCSC, Title IV eligibility through the U.S. Department of Education, and program-level approvals from professional boards. Each of those bodies has its own standards, reporting cycles, and enforcement powers.

Layered on top are Title IX and the California Education Code, FERPA and state student privacy law, employment and wage-hour law as applied to faculty and staff, ADA and Section 504 accessibility obligations, Clery Act reporting for institutions with campus security authorities, and consumer protection rules governing advertising, enrollment agreements, and refund policies.

We counsel colleges, universities, private and charter schools, vocational and trade schools, and education nonprofits in Fresno, Clovis, Madera, Visalia, Hanford, Merced, Bakersfield, and throughout California, and we coordinate across all of these frameworks rather than treating each in isolation.

Institutions routinely conflate state approval with accreditation. BPPE approval is a state licensing requirement to operate lawfully in California. Accreditation is a separate, voluntary review by a recognized agency that evaluates institutional quality and, in most cases, is a prerequisite for federal financial aid.

Losing one does not automatically end the other, but the two interact. An accreditation action can trigger state scrutiny, and a state enforcement action can prompt an accreditor to place the institution on warning or show-cause status. Teach-out obligations, student record custody, and refund liability all follow from that interaction.

We advise institutions through initial approval and candidacy, substantive change filings, site visit preparation, self-study review, response to findings, and appeals of adverse actions.

Most institutional litigation and enforcement traces back to a document that was never updated: a catalog with a refund policy that no longer matches practice, an enrollment agreement missing required disclosures, a student conduct code that does not afford the process California courts expect, or a faculty handbook that reads like a contract the administration never intended to sign.

A periodic legal audit of the catalog, enrollment agreements, conduct and grievance procedures, faculty and staff policies, and Title IX materials is the single most cost-effective step an institution can take. When something does go wrong, we handle investigations, administrative proceedings, and disputes with the same team that wrote the policies.