School Law

There are only a handful of lawyers in Montana who represent schools. Three of them are with Felt, Martin, Frazier & Weldon, P.C.

We provide legal expertise in all areas of public school law, including:

• Student discipline, including due process concerns
• Employment relations, including teacher discipline and termination
• Personnel complaints & other employment matters
• Unfair labor complaints
• Title IX and all discrimination matters
• Complaints with the Montana Human Rights Bureau
• Board operational & political issues, open meetings and public documents
• Policy review & revision
• Special education and Section 504
• Contract development and public procurement
• Training for school administrators and teachers in all areas of school law
• Advising Boards of Trustees in person or by phone
• The public right to know and participate in government operations
• Open meetings and public document requests
• Civil rights
• Constitutional matters
• School finance
• Opening and closing schools
• District annexation, consolidation and territory transfer
• Appeals to county superintendents and the state superintendent
• Labor negotiations & grievances

We provide Montana schools over 50 years of combined experience in school law. Three attorneys here have significant experience in school law. Larry Martin has been continuously representing school districts since 1980 and has appeared multiple times before the Montana Supreme Court arguing cases on behalf of school district clients. Jeff Weldon was counsel to the Montana Superintendent of Public Education and spent 1 1/2 years as in-house counsel for the Billings School District; Jeff works daily with school district clients. Marilee Duncan assists both and has developed a school law practice over the past 15 years.

The result is a firm with lawyers who have as much school experience as any firm or organization in Montana. We understand the unique needs of school administrators and trustees in the day-to-day operation of a school district. Because of the demands and needs of our clients, we pride ourselves in being always available to clients. We work in a collegial manner and, if one of us is not immediately available, another will be. We act as the general counsel for many districts. Some issues demand in-person service and we routinely appear before trustees at regular and special meetings.

Our school law expertise includes not only school litigation and issues involving specific school law statutes, but we have been negotiating school labor contracts and handling grievances and arbitrations since the early 1980’s. In addition, we are fully familiar and have represented many school districts in connection with real estate transactions and the negotiation of contracts for services and equipment.

Our Clients

Some school districts are regular clients and some we work with on a case-by-case basis. We generally do not accept the representation of individual teachers, administrators or trustees who have claims against school districts and limit our practice to the representation of school districts and boards of trustees as an entity. We have never experienced a conflict of interest between the districts that we represent so our wide representation of multiple school districts has not impeded our ability to provide services to our clients. We represent numerous school districts and community colleges in Montand. Our school clients include the school districts in Billings, Absarokee, Belfry, Bridger, Brockton, Ekalaka, Glasgow, Glendive, Huntley Project, Laurel, Livingston, Lodge Grass, Miles City, Park City, Pryor, Reed Point, Thompson Falls, Miles Community College and Dawson Community College, and several other public school systems.