Legal
Web Site Is a National Hit
By Warren Duffie When lawyers and administrators on the staffs of U.S. universities from Stanford to Ohio State need help on the thorny issues of how to comply with federal regulations governing higher education, where do they go? To The Catholic University of America, of course — more
specifically, to CUA’s Web site page called the Campus Legal Information
Clearinghouse (http://counsel.cua.edu),
or CLIC.
Created six years ago by CUA General Counsel Craig Parker
and his staff, this Web page was originally intended for in-house use only:
helping to improve Catholic University’s compliance with the diverse and
constantly changing laws governing higher education. Since then, however,
hundreds of colleges and universities have found out about the site and have
visited it for free compliance information and advice. Drawing about 600
visitors daily, it apparently is the only Web page of its kind in the
country, since most universities treat such legal information as proprietary. “I’ve never seen anyone do something like this. It’s a
fantastic site with a wealth of information,” says Basil Thomson, associate
general counsel for Southern Methodist University and an officer of the
National Association of College and University Attorneys. As Catholic University’s general counsel, Parker wears
many legal hats. But he says he can best summarize his job with a question
that a Board of Trustees member once asked him: “You’re making sure
everything we do is legal, right?” That question prompted Parker and his staff to establish
the CLIC. “We’re clearly on the small end of major research
universities, but in terms of health laws, it only takes two pounds of
asbestos to bring severe regulations down on your head,” Parker says. “Even
though CUA doesn’t use the same amount of staff or money as the University of
Maryland or have the same number of students as George Washington University,
we have the same complexity from a regulatory point of view.” With the influx of civil rights laws and other legislation
over the last 40 years, universities have had to interpret and comply with an
ever-growing mountain of federal laws (Parker estimates there are over 200),
covering topics from sexual harassment to campus security. Though large
schools such as Penn State have teams of seven to 12 attorneys to shoulder
the weight, smaller schools usually have only a handful. CUA, for example,
has three attorneys. How
They Built the Site
In 1996 the workload was wearing Parker down, and he needed
a better way to track changes in federal law. Normally, he would receive a
question from a university official, review a law and send out a memo,
stashing it away in a folder for future reference. But a couple of years
would usually pass before another question about that law would arise. When
it did, Parker had to sift through his paper files, recover the document and
check how the law might have changed. “I just wasn’t keeping up, and I was afraid I would miss a
major legal decision,” Parker says. “That was when the Web was starting to
become big, so we figured it would be a good idea to put everything into
computer files and come up with a way to track legislation online.” About that time, he hired Margaret O’Donnell, previously a
government compliance officer, as a part-time contractor. Together, O’Donnell
(now a full-time assistant general counsel) and Parker compiled the CLIC, a
“virtual legal encyclopedia” written in both plain English and legal terms,
covering a variety of compliance issues such as those involving the Americans
With Disabilities Act, employment and copyright. On the Web site, a visitor
can click on a topic from a menu that includes ADA Compliance, Employment and
Environment. Then at the Web page for Employment, for instance, a visitor can
gather additional information by clicking on Q & A or Publications, Videos
& Web Tutorials. Administrators can also browse “FedLaw,” a detailed
summary of laws applicable to higher education. The section offers an A-to-Z
index of regulations and topics, as well as recent cases and decisions. Another feature is the compliance calendar. For example,
if a college needs to file disclosure reports to the government about
donations from foreign sources, an administrator can check this calendar to
find out when such reports are due. “The site has a section with detailed legal analysis and
court cases for lawyers to visit,” Parker says. “But we’ve also made it
reader-friendly for non-lawyers. There are pamphlets, newsletters and
charts.” Much of O’Donnell’s time is devoted to the page. She daily
monitors new regulatory changes and legal decisions, finding her information
in newspapers and through listservs, law firms and legal associations. “It’s basically a matter of keeping an eye on what comes
across my desk,” she says. “The law is such a fluid subject, and you can’t
know everything all the time. Because so many university lawyers and
administrators use our page, it makes for a collegial atmosphere. Everyone is
willing to share information because we all benefit from better compliance.” CUA Associate General Counsel Kathryn Bender has also made
substantial contributions to the page, Parker says, especially in the areas
of student life issues, immigration regulations and intellectual
property. If
You Build It, They Will Come
Universities around the country have come out of the
woodwork to use the handy site and praise its creators. At recent
conferences, senior administrators at Stanford University and other schools
have complimented Parker on it. Several colleges use it to share information
with other institutions, and the University of Kansas placed a link to the
page on its Web site. Institutions such as the University of North Carolina
and Ohio State University have placed training brochures on the CUA page as
examples to be used by others. The University of Arizona took the dialogue
from one of Parker’s Internet tutorials and incorporated it into a tutorial
for its own staff. “It’s like seeing a remake of a movie I made,” Parker
quips. “It says something that a big university can benefit from our work. We
want to make this information available so people don’t have to re-invent the
wheel.” “The site is innovative, timely, and I would recommend it
to anyone,” says Georgia Harper, copyright attorney for the University of
Texas System. “I’ve found it helpful because of its user-friendly and
relevant information.” “Craig Parker and his staff have made a tremendous
contribution to institutions of higher learning throughout the country, as we
all deal with complex legal issues on a regular basis,” says the Very Rev.
David M. O’Connell, C.M., CUA president. “I have received wonderful comments
about the information on the Web site in conversations with members of boards
of trustees on which I serve.” Catholic University’s CLIC also earned the support of the
American Council on Education, which now co-sponsors the site. ACE is an
advocacy group representing 2,300 colleges and universities on legal issues
such as government relations, legislation, research and public policy. ACE
executives saw the CUA page early last year and were impressed. “We wanted to give the site national visibility because it
offers a solution to a serious issue,” says Sheldon Steinbach, ACE’s vice
president and general counsel for government and public affairs. “Compliance
is an issue that grows as fast as federal legislation is passed, and many
institutions are not keeping up. Catholic University’s Web page is designed
for everyone — lawyers, managers and business officers.” ACE has teamed up with United Educators Insurance, the
nation’s largest education insurance firm (insuring about 1,100 schools), to
help the CLIC host a competition among colleges and universities this year
for the best and most creative tactics that they have used to improve
regulatory compliance. The insurance firm will provide $5,000 for awards. The general counsel and his staff aren’t content to rest
on the laurels of CLIC’s success. Parker envisions ways of improving
it, particularly in the way materials on the site are accessed and disseminated.
For example, he foresees a day when a college dean of students might
visit the page, find a sexual harassment brochure that could benefit
her campus, access it, place her school’s logo on the digital version
and print copies at her campus (with appropriate credit to the college
that submitted it). The general counsel’s office also wants to install an
e-mail subscription system, whereby managers could automatically receive
alerts on any compliance issue they choose. In addition, Parker wants to solicit more law firms as
co-sponsors. A firm’s logo would be placed on the site’s index page, with a
note referencing its sponsorship of the site. In exchange, the firm would
make a financial contribution or provide materials such as brochures or legal
summaries. |
