Schools

Legal advice for schools

Confident legal support for complex school environments

Independent schools operate in a landscape that is increasingly complex - shaped by regulation and compliance, new technology, reputational risk, evolving expectations from parents and staff, and the need to manage their institutions with clarity and resilience.

We advise schools on the legal and strategic challenges that arise across every part of school life: safeguarding, governance, serious incident reviews, employment law, compliance, mergers and acquisitions, overseas expansion, complaints, data protection and data security, estates and property, and school leadership transitions.

Our focus is to provide practical, clear advice that enables school leaders to make well-informed decisions and respond decisively when challenges arise.

Specialist advice

We act for:

UK independent schools (charitable or privately owned)
International independent schools
International school groups and global education businesses

Our team works with:

Heads and deputy heads
Boards of governors
COOs, bursars and finance directors
Designated safeguarding leads (DSLs)
Clerks, HR professionals and in-house lawyers
Proprietors and senior leadership teams of international school groups

We are regularly instructed to advise on high-profile, high-pressure situations – from complex safeguarding matters to structural change and strategic growth. Our clients also benefit from our strong relationships with key sector bodies, including ISBA, HMC, AGBIS, ISC and the Charity Commission.

Adding strategic value

Our legal expertise is enhanced by our Schools Adviser, Mary Breen, a former headmistress with over 20 years’ experience. Mary works alongside our lawyers to offer clients strategic insight into leadership, governance and parental relationships – particularly when dealing with sensitive or multifaceted issues. As an accredited mediator, she also supports schools with internal conflict resolution and serious incident reviews.

How We Help

We provide legal and strategic advice across the full lifecycle of a school’s operation, including:

Safeguarding and child protection: policy reviews and audits, investigations, reporting obligations and managing allegations
Regulatory compliance and governance: support for governors and trustees, serious incident reporting, inspection readiness
Parental disputes and complaints: including litigation, exclusions and complaints at Stage 3
Employment and HR: workforce relations, union matters, TPS withdrawal, grievances, disciplinaries, restructures and TRA referrals
Data protection and digital risk: subject access requests, breach response, AI and tech policy development
Reputation and crisis response: media management, live incident coordination, and internal investigations
School mergers, partnerships and acquisitions: including asset transfers, overseas ventures, group formation, and charitable restructures
Property and estate management: development, transactions, sustainability and long-term estate strategy
Commercial and banking: contracts, fundraising, financing and fees in advance schemes
Immigration and international operations: compliance and student/staff mobility
Family law support: where family breakdowns crossover with school safeguarding or parental disputes

We advise ISBA on a wide range of issues their members face, across areas spanning VAT, safeguarding, SEND, AML, data protection, employment, immigration and much besides. We also provide ISBA with a wide range of template legal documents for members to use, including the market-leading parent contract.

Farrer & Co is responsive and the advice is comprehensive with an assurance that one is getting the best advice in the sector.

Chambers UK 2026

Recent work highlights

We are proud to support schools on complex, high-impact projects in the UK and internationally. Recent examples include:

Global expansion: Advised several top-tier independent schools on establishing their overseas schools in a wide range of countries, covering governance structure, local regulation, safeguarding frameworks, and IP protection.
Strategic merger: Acting for a co-educational independent school on its merger with a prestigious preparatory school. The transaction required complex, cross-disciplinary input spanning charity law, property, employment, pensions, intellectual property, data protection and commercial contracts.
Brand protection and growth: Managing trade mark portfolios for several top independent schools, advising on UK and overseas registrations, and supporting brand exploitation through franchise and collaboration agreements – enabling British schools to establish trusted operations abroad.
Sensitive subject access requests: We manage multiple complex DSARs, often involving safeguarding and other sensitive information for well-known schools, using the latest software.
Crisis management: We advised a leading independent school on a major safeguarding investigation involving senior leadership, balancing regulatory, reputational and pastoral priorities.
Parental complaint: We advised a well-known independent school on a serious parental complaint alleging multiple breaches by the school of safeguarding procedures, failure to exercise the duty of care owed by a school to a pupil and breach of the parent contract. Following our advice and careful handling, the Charity Commission ultimately did not uphold the complaint.
Political uncertainty: We supported a group of schools on adapting to the introduction of VAT on fees including advising on changes to parent contracts, group structuring and assessing where VAT applies.

Farrer is highly responsive - no matter the time of day or night. They are always calm, reassuring and offer measured and accurate advice. Their knowledge of the world of independent education is unparalleled

Legal 500 2026