University Practice
Crowell & Moring provides a comprehensive range of litigation, transactional, counseling and public policy services to colleges, universities, academic medical centers and other educational organizations across the United States and beyond. Public and private institutions alike rely on the substantive expertise, interdisciplinary approach and client-focused service offered by Crowell & Moring's University Practice Team to provide practical, strategic solutions to complex legal problems. This cross-disciplinary team of specialists is devoted to understanding and addressing difficult legal issues facing universities and other institutions of higher learning with innovative, cost-effective and sustainable solutions, in partnership with each institution, tailored to its needs.
Areas of specialization include:
Academic Medical Centers
Our attorneys counsel and represent academic medical centers regarding traditional reimbursement and commercial transaction issues in addition to matters involving scientific integrity (e.g., misconduct, disqualification), research objectivity (e.g., financial conflicts of interest), human subjects and the Common Rule, FDA reporting obligations, the Shelby Amendment expansion of the Freedom of Information Act, HIPAA compliance, inventorship and technology transfer, and the NIH grants process. We also deal with antitrust issues in collaborative activities among research centers. Our expertise and breadth of experience help clients address the increased scrutiny of medical research by the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, the FDA and HHS's Office of Human Research Protection, particularly with respect to the protections of the rights and health of human subjects in clinical trials.
Our attorneys conduct internal audits and investigations regarding clinical research and scientific misconduct, defend research disqualification proceedings, and develop clinical research privacy compliance programs. We also handle internal investigations of compliance with adverse event reporting, informed consent, and recordkeeping requirements for human subjects research. We defended a lead investigator in an FDA disqualification hearing and represented a major teaching university in resolution without sanction of a significant government investigation.
Our team also has advocated vigorously to minimize the burden of new federal regulations and administrative requirements on academic medical centers, and has worked with research institutions to craft specific policies to comply with evolving privacy regulations and the Anti-Kickback Act and Stark law regulations. We also provide antitrust guidance for academic medical centers regarding managed care center networks, protocols for clinical trial administration and reporting, and business and clinical affiliations with community hospitals and medical practices.
Academic Affairs and Governance
Litigation of complex and sophisticated legal issues is a core strength of Crowell & Moring and the successful resolution of academic affairs issues, with system-wide impact, is a hallmark of the firm's University Practice Team. We also assist universities in assessing and minimizing litigation risks in light of recent legal trends and other developments affecting academic institutions.
Our team represents academic institutions in a broad range of matters, including First Amendment issues relating to targeted picketing of faculty members' residences by animal rights activists, funding and sponsoring of academic conferences on politically controversial topics, alleged libel by students newspapers, use of social media to harass and defame, privacy issues involving student health information and other personal data under FERPA, student class actions arising out of budget-driven fee increases, and issues related to tenure and academic appointments. We successfully represented a public university in a constitutional challenge to its denial of official recognition and funding to a religious student group that excluded other students, in violation of the school's "open membership" policy, based on their beliefs. See Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, 130 S. Ct. 2971 (2010). Likewise, we successfully defended a public university's implementation of a state law permitting certain nonresident students, including undocumented immigrants, to pay lower in-state tuition rates if they had attended high school in the state for a designated period of time. See Martinez v. Regents of the University of California, 50 Cal. 4th 1277 (2010). We also have represented several universities in high-profile litigation and related administrative proceedings arising out of the termination of, or other disciplinary action taken against, prominent faculty members.
Intellectual Property and Life Sciences
Crowell & Moring offers a full array of intellectual property services, from procurement to licensing to enforcement of patents, trademarks and copyrights.
Counseling
Intellectual property law in the United States is in a state of flux. Courts struggle to apply existing intellectual property law in a digital environment. Almost every year, Congress passes new intellectual property laws, such as the recently enacted America Invents Act. At no time in recent memory has sound counseling been needed more by university counsel to help navigate the complexities of intellectual property law. And, unlike many large national law firms, Crowell & Moring still believes that its top lawyers should be available to address the day-to-day counseling needs of its clients. Whether university counsel needs guidance on applying the fair use doctrine to a copyrighted work or advice on the legality of the purchase of trademarks as keywords in Google's AdWords program, Crowell & Moring's intellectual property lawyers are ready to help.
Procurement
Crowell & Moring has been the "go to" patent prosecution firm for many of the nation's leading research universities. Our strength in life sciences, biotechnology and electrical engineering is based on technical experience in both academic and industry settings. Our trademark prosecution practice is equally strong. It is led by a former examiner for the U.S. Trademark Office and offers a low fixed-fee application process.
Licensing
Crowell & Moring's Intellectual Property Practice Group has designed and implemented licensing regimes for all types of intellectual property. We have assisted university patent foundations in establishing licensing procedures and enforcement policies. We also regularly conduct training on intellectual property for key university administrators. And, we have negotiated and drafted complex licenses and technology transfer agreements – both into and out of the university.
Enforcement
Crowell & Moring's intellectual property litigators have tried more than one hundred cases to jury verdicts in the last decade. They have obtained numerous notable victories, including a recent trade secret verdict of $919.9 million – the largest contested trade secret verdict ever awarded by a jury. They have been particularly successful at obtaining interim relief to stop infringement.
Labor and Employment
Our Labor and Employment attorneys count numerous universities among their clients for affirmative action counseling, equal employment opportunity investigations and labor negotiations. Our preeminent affirmative action compliance team has assisted university clients who are government contractors or subcontractors. Our representations have ranged from helping academic institutions as new federal contractors or subcontractors set up their initial affirmative action plans (AAPs) and associated tracking mechanisms to representing universities being audited by the Department of Labor's OFCCP. Our wage and hour practice likewise covers the full gamut of state and federal issues relating to payment of wages and classification of employees. We regularly advise our university clients on their compliance with the employee classification scheme mandated by the FLSA and perform compliance audits, in advance of litigation or governmental investigations. Our Labor attorneys have extensive experience handling complex labor disputes and counsel universities with respect to collective bargaining negotiations and contract administration, including grievance arbitration. Universities also seek out our litigators for high-profile litigation for alleged wrongful terminations and tricky employment issues.
Regulatory Compliance
Crowell & Moring has a deep bench of cross-disciplinary regulatory expertise in a wide range of areas including, e.g., USDA and EPA; export controls imposed by the US Departments of Commerce and State and their application to university research, including the regulation of re-export of US-origin technology to foreign persons in the US or abroad; regulation of international transactions by the Office of Foreign Asset Control of the Department of the Treasury; and importation of scientific equipment.
Investigations
Crowell & Moring fields an experienced team of highly skilled attorneys from the firm's London, Los Angeles, Orange County, New York, and Washington, D.C. offices, bringing to bear a rare blend of insight, experience and judgment that can only be gleaned from a team that includes lifelong defense lawyers, including former Assistant Federal Defenders, as well as former prosecutors and enforcement attorneys from the Department of Justice, and the Office of Independent Counsel.
Our experience includes defending investigations by grand juries, the Department of Justice, the FBI, FDA, the IRS, congressional committees, independent and special counsels, federal agency inspectors general, state attorney generals as well as the Serious Fraud Office, Financial Services Authority and Crown Prosecution Service in the United Kingdom. We also are adept at handling parallel multinational investigations involving the FCPA and export controls, where the credentials and bona fides of the former government officials from both sides of the Atlantic among our ranks facilitates the necessary coordination with authorities and local counsel in other countries.
Government Contracts
Crowell & Moring's government contracts lawyers are both counselors and litigators across the entire public procurement spectrum from contract formation issues and strategies, through bid protests, to contract interpretation and performance disputes, to post-performance audits, investigations, and allegations of fraud. Through regular alerts, webinars and seminars, we keep our clients abreast of the legal and regulatory developments that affect entities doing business with the government, and we have litigated many of the most significant government contract cases before administrative agencies, state and federal trial courts, and courts of appeal. Our knowledge and breadth of procurement and related experience have practical advantages for our clients. We can carefully tailor our advice to a client, because we are generally able to predict, based on our past experience, how an agency or decision maker will react. Beyond that, we do not have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to most difficult legal issues and questions. The size of our government contracts practice group ensures we have seasoned lawyers with the subject matter expertise to address the most novel of issues.
This expertise also extends to the unique world of federal grants where we have counseled academic and research institutions on the intellectual property rights and other conditions imposed on use of grant funds.
International Commercial Ventures
We counsel universities working in, or seeking to expand into, the global marketplace, utilizing an integrated and cross-disciplinary approach drawing on our broad expertise in, e.g., government contracts, intellectual property, cross-border corporate, finance and commercial issues, export controls, anti-bribery provisions, and taxation. Universities looking to capitalize their assets (e.g., research findings, technology advances, medical systems, training protocols) by entering into commercial ventures with foreign governments or other entities, look to Crowell & Moring to better understand the legal risks of expanding their commercial ventures beyond the United States, and for sound advice in navigating this global space.
Public Policy and Government Relations
Crowell & Moring's public policy group provides advocacy and policy development services to clients seeking government relations and consulting assistance before the U.S. Congress, the White House, and federal agencies. We have represented colleges and universities in the policy arena, and understand their unique interests and needs. The lawyers and policy specialists in the firm's public policy group possess extensive experience working with government to help clients address a problem, take advantage of an existing opportunity or create a new opportunity. Most of our public policy lawyers and specialists have had first-hand experience working as senior staff to Members of Congress or senior-level career and political officials in various agencies of the federal government, and as a consequence have acquired broad knowledge of the inner workings of the legislative and executive branches of government. Our team is bi-partisan, which means they can work with both Democrats and Republicans. Their long-standing professional relationships with key Members of Congress and staff facilitate the planning and execution of meetings, monitoring and drafting legislation and testimony, and developing and implementing strategy to advance or block a particular policy to accomplish a legislative or regulatory goal. Likewise, with the executive branch, our team analyzes proposed regulations, participates in agency rulemaking proceedings and public meetings, prepares public comments, and interacts with agency officials to advance our clients' concerns and policy goals. Our public policy lawyers and specialists frequently work with other lawyers in the firm where matters involve complex legal and policy issues, facilitating a multidisciplinary approach to solving client problems.
For more information about Crowell & Moring's university practice, please contact Ellen Dwyer or Laurel Pyke Malson in Washington, D.C. at (202) 624-2500, Ethan P. Schulman in San Francisco at (415) 986-2800, or your usual Crowell & Moring contact.