A Title IX Coordinator advocates for the institution regarding compliance with Title IX. Ultimately, the Coordinator must make decisions that are in the best interest of the institution, which is not always a popular position. No two cases are alike and it is rare that solutions to issues that arise are black and white. With that in mind, additional reasons to engage our services are:
Support. Sexual misconduct cases are emotional and stressful for all involved, including your Title IX Coordinator (or whomever is tasked with investigating these cases). Often the stress on these individuals is lost. These individuals are isolated, by design, to avoid a conflict of interest and to ensure they are able to make decisions that are in the best interest of the institution. While they may have colleagues at other institutions to call, they can only share information and receive advice in a limited manner due to FERPA confidentiality restrictions. Having our team available to support these individuals not only helps insure Title IX compliance in an investigation but also supports an important employee who is tasked with a very difficult job.
Legal Advice. Our services provide legal advice during an on-going investigation. This is important because our communications with your Coordinator and others is protected by the attorney-client privilege. In other words, if an investigation results in an OCR complaint or a lawsuit, the content of those communications does not have to be disclosed. As a result, Title IX Coordinators feel more comfortable seeking our assistance, which in turn provides the best possible support for the institution at large.
Compliance. The ultimate goal for an institution is to provide a safe environment for its students, and this is also the goal of the Title IX guidance that has come out from the Office of Civil Rights through Dear Colleague Letters. Title IX Coordinators wear many hats. Although they are trained in Title IX compliance, they are also handling other matters for the institution separate from that role. In addition, many times their thoughts and views may be different from their colleagues, which can prove challenging when tasked with maintaining a neutral compliance minded position. Our team is specialized in Title IX compliance, allowing us to provide timely advice and assist your Coordinator with these differing views in the midst of an investigation. In addition, Title IX crosses over many legal areas – FERPA, Clery, VAWA, to name a few. We assist in navigating this difficult landscape during an investigation.
Title IX is a very specialized, ever-changing, area of the law. If you currently retain local counsel for legal matters, but find that your local counsel is not well-versed in this particular area of law, our services can bridge that gap. If a case ends up in an OCR complaint or litigation, we can work alongside your counsel to assist.
A very important distinction is that many of these groups provide consultants who are not attorneys. Thus, if your Title IX Coordinator or member of your TIX Team communicates with them about a case it is not protected by the attorney-client privilege. Our services are in fact legal services which allows us, in most instances, to protect all communications by the attorney-client privilege.