Our general business projects range from contract drafting, review and negotiation to unrelated business income tax issues; from nonprofit corporation law matters to insurance and risk management concerns. We support the full range of business needs facing higher education institutions, from day-to-day contracts to transformational projects. We have unique expertise in mergers, acquisitions and other collaborations between higher education institutions; we can provide not only the traditional transactional support needed, but can also advise on all of the steps needed for accreditation and regulatory approval and represent institutions before these oversight bodies.
Our experience in the field gives us particular advantage in many of the major vendor contracts common across higher education — we provide advice on specific vendors’ terms and conditions informed by our repeat experience across the table from these vendors.
Our general business projects range from contract drafting, review and negotiation to unrelated business income tax issues; from nonprofit corporation law matters to insurance and risk management concerns. We support the full range of business needs facing higher education institutions, from day-to-day contracts to transformational projects. We have unique expertise in mergers, acquisitions and other collaborations between higher education institutions; we can provide not only the traditional transactional support needed, but can also advise on all of the steps needed for accreditation and regulatory approval and represent institutions before these oversight bodies.
Our experience in the field gives us particular advantage in many of the major vendor contracts common across higher education — we provide advice on specific vendors’ terms and conditions informed by our repeat experience across the table from these vendors.
Some significant matters include:
- Represented institutions in connection with the spin-off of academic units to form new freestanding institutions.
- In a first-of-its-kind scenario, represented an out-of-state Research 1 institution (Northeastern University) as it combined with a New York institution (Marymount Manhattan College), requiring almost daily negotiations with the New York State Department of Education and Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
- Handled all legal work related to the relocation of a college from Long Island to Upstate New York, including the successful defense of an action to enjoin relocation.
- Reviewed and negotiated over 80 vendor and affiliation contracts in four-month timespan across university units as part of recent interim general counsel role.
- Secured unprecedented Attorney General approvals of the release of restrictions on endowment funds for multiple financially distressed institutions in order to facilitate a path to sustainability.
- Secured IRS approval that funds from industrial corporations under research contracts were for “research” and not unrelated business income.
- Involved in numerous co-generation projects, including a $120 million facility, constructed at developer's cost, furnishing steam for adjacent colleges and hospitals.
- Reorganized separate medical college and hospital corporations into a major academic medical center under direction and control of an umbrella entity.
- Obtained a landmark unrelated business income tax ruling requiring IRS to allocate institution's expenses of facility or property leased to others in proportion to days of actual total use, rather than 365 days in year.
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