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HISTORY OF
THE SCHOOL LAW SECTION In 1970, Cecil Morgan of Fort Worth, together with Warren Whitham and Don Gay of Dallas, called a meeting to discuss the formation of a group of school lawyers to affiliate with the State Bar of Texas. Joining Messrs. Morgan, Whitham and Gay at the Adolphus Hotel were Grant Cook of Houston, Ralph Langley of San Antonio, and Kelly Frels of Houston. These lawyers were drawn together initially by desegregation cases, employment suits and by a joint suit by the major metropolitan school districts against the state contesting the manner in which the state used property values to disperse state funds to local districts. It was evident to all attendees at the Dallas meeting that a statewide organization of lawyers was needed to share information and network on the emerging education legal issues faced by Texas school districts. Bylaws were written, and after approval by the State Bar Board of Directors, the group became organized as the School Law Committee of the State Bar of Texas. Cecil Morgan, the Dean of Texas school law, served as the first Chair of the School Law Committee. The initial membership was almost exclusively school district attorneys. The Committee presented its first seminar at the State Bar's 1972 Annual Meeting in Fort worth. In 1973, the Committee qualified as a section under State Bar policy and became the School Law Section. A big boost to the fledgling Section was the development, under Warren Whitham's leadership, of standard notices and procedures so school districts could comply with the Open Meetings Act of 1973. By 1974, the Section had 236 members. In 1978, the attorneys representing school districts created the Council of School Attorneys which was affiliated with the Texas Association of School Boards and the National School Boards Association. The establishment of this advocacy organization could have spelled the end of the School Law Section, but it did not. Jim Deatheredge of Irving, Bill Bednar of Austin, and Kelly Frels led an effort to insure the continued viability of the Section by recruiting lawyers for Section membership who did not represent school districts but instead represented plaintiffs and employee organizations. As these new members became actively involved in the Section's leadership, the Section's future as a nonadvocacy information-sharing and networking organization was solidified. The Section is now a vehicle through which lawyers who represent diverse and different interests find common ground to discuss education law issues. The School Law Section now has 630 members and is governed by an executive committee whose membership represents all areas of the state and reflects the practice diversity of the Section's members. The Section conducts an annual summer CLE retreat at a location where families are welcome, and it publishes newsletters which are mailed to its members and are also available on this site. The section also co-sponsors seminars designed to address the interests of its members. |