Ingerman Smith, L.L.P. has been engaged in many notable education lawsuits during the past three decades. With over 40% of our practice devoted to litigation, we bring thorough experience to every forum for the litigation of school district matters and other educational issues. We are also committed to the use of mediation and arbitration when appropriate.
Each year, our firm handles numerous appeals to the Commissioner of Education as well as proceedings in federal and state courts. We litigate in the areas of education and labor law as well as commercial matters such as bid or construction disputes, and a wide range of other practice areas.
We routinely litigate before labor arbitrators, the Public Employment Relations Board, the New York State Division of Human Rights and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Insurance companies regularly appoint us to litigate for our clients as well as districts that we do not ordinarily represent.
The firm has acted as counsel in hundreds of other cases involving significant court decisions. Some examples:
· We represented the Monroe-Woodbury School District before the Supreme Court in the Kiryas Joel School District suit involving claims of violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
· We represented the Bedford School District in litigation claiming that the District’s curriculum violates the Establishment Clause.
· We acted as counsel in the early 1980s, representing the Northport School District in an action against the Commissioner of Education regarding the District’s issuance of diplomas to handicapped students in defiance of the Commissioner’s order that the students be granted only a “certificate.” This suit resulted in the enactment of legislation requiring issuance of annotated diplomas to handicapped students.
Mediation and Arbitration: We use the alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”) process whenever that supports the goals and best interests of our clients. We have participated in the successful mediation of many lawsuits and labor negotiation disputes. For example, we represented the Town of Huntington in a complex series of over 40 claims of employment discrimination under the aegis of a single complex ADR agreement, negotiated by our firm with the plaintiffs’ counsel.
Our managing partner, attorney John Gross, was Chairman of the New York Bar Association Committee on Alternate Dispute Resolution. He and all attorneys at Ingerman Smith L.L.P. remain committed to the appropriate utilization of mediation and arbitration both for the resolution of labor disputes and employment discrimination matters. We successfully negotiated alternate dispute resolution procedures for resolution of lawsuits filed in federal court resulting from civil rights and employment related discrimination matters.
We routinely recommend resort to mediation forums that are provided by the federal courts including but not limited to early neutral evaluation and standard mediation. We have also tailored mediation techniques for use in construction litigation and contract matters.
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