Legal Retainer

Educational institutions operate within an increasingly complex regulatory environment. From governance and safeguarding to admissions, parental disputes, complaints, SEND, contracts and Department for Education requirements, legal issues can arise quickly and often require specialist advice.

Our Education Legal Retainers provide direct access to experienced solicitors who understand the challenges facing schools, academy trusts, colleges, universities and education sector organisations across England and Wales.

Through our Geldards Education Legal Core and Enhanced Retainer packages, you can access practical, pragmatic legal advice whenever you need it, helping your organisation manage risk, maintain compliance and make informed decisions with confidence.

Legal Support Designed for the Education Sector

Unlike general legal advice services, our retainer is specifically tailored to educational organisations.

We advise on:

Governance
Discrimination
Procurement
Judicial Review
Trustee and governor responsibilities
Safeguarding law
Admissions and exclusions
SEND and disability matters
Data protection and GDPR
Department for Education compliance
Significant change applications
Academy conversions and transfers
Commercial contracts
Collaboration agreements
Shared services arrangements
Procurement and outsourcing projects
Regulatory investigations
Complaints and disputes

Our lawyers understand the legal, regulatory and operational pressures faced by education leaders and provide advice that is both practical and commercially focused.

Core and Enhanced Retainer Options

Our Education Legal Retainer is available through Core and Enhanced packages, allowing organisations to choose the level of support that best meets their needs.

Both options provide access to specialist education lawyers and sector-focused advice, while the Enhanced package offers additional support for organisations with more complex requirements.

Enhanced service

Our approach to our retainer services is to offer every retainer client a dedicated relationship manager who will also act as their principal advisor, advising on most of their day-to-day legal issues. They will be a senior solicitor, who is also a specialist in the education sector. This approach ensures our clients receive prompt, high quality, practical and clear specialist advice.

Our Enhanced Service gives you access to advice from your senior solicitor who specialises in the education sector by phone, video call or email. It covers all routine enquiries provided that they can be dealt with in about an hour. For example, this could include reviewing straightforward documentation, advice on immediate problems, drafting letters and small agreements. A breakdown of some of the areas where we can help can be found below.

We encourage our clients to use us as a sounding board. We are here to advise on strategy and day-to-day legal matters.

Where a matter requires more extensive support, we will agree a separate scope of instructions at an additional charge. You will benefit from discounted hourly rates and all fee quotes are set out in a transparent manner and where possible at the beginning of a matter, so that you are clear as to the advice and assistance included and can budget effectively.

We will do our utmost to identify matters that could require additional support at the outset, but where this is not possible – for example if matters escalate or more support is needed than originally envisaged, we will discuss the options open to you so that you can plan and budget for the way forward.

Enhanced Service clients also benefit from discounted rates on our practical and engaging training sessions.

At Geldards we believe that any retainer works best when there is a well-founded and honest relationship between the provider and the client. To help build and maintain that relationship, your senior relationship manager will schedule an annual review meeting with you which can be held online or in person. We will also monitor usage to ensure that you are obtaining value for money.

Core Service

Again, as with the Enhanced service, our approach is to offer every Core Service client a dedicated relationship manager who will also act as their principal advisor, advising on most of their day-to-day legal issues. They will be a senior solicitor, who is also a specialist in the education sector. This approach ensures our clients receive prompt, high quality, practical, accessible and straightforward specialist advice.

Our Core Service option is for those that require less support, where it is envisaged that your educational institution will require quick occasional advice.

The service provides access to legal advice on the telephone to your occasional enquiries that can be dealt with on the telephone in about half an hour.

Where the number of enquiries received indicates that your legal need is significantly more than the usage anticipated by our retainer fee, we may speak to you about agreeing to a new package for your educational institution.

Why Choose Geldards?

Our education team advises schools, academy trusts, colleges, universities, independent schools and educational charities throughout England and Wales.

By working with us, you gain access to a team that understands not only the law but also the realities of operating within the education sector.

Contact our team to discuss our Core and Enhanced Legal Retainer packages and discover how ongoing specialist legal support can help your organisation remain compliant, protect its interests and achieve its strategic objectives.