Hayley O'Sullivan Email & Phone Number

I have been advising schools and trusts at Browne Jacobson for more than 13 years and love nothing more than 'lightening the load' of senior leaders and governors so they can get on with the day job of educating the pupils in their care. I am a pragmatist, helping schools evaluate risk, take proactive steps to comply with their legal obligations and encourage preventative steps to avoid further legal action being taken. Advising and providing engaging training on behaviour and exclusion, equalities legislation, SEND and complex complaints are particular passions of mine.Browne Jacobson is independently recognised as one of the leading education teams in the country. On starting out the team was myself and a couple of others, but over time has grown to a large multi-disciplinary team in the education sector. I lead on the development of the first ever support pack for schools and trusts on managing the suspensions and exclusions process. We now have numerous other support packs helping schools manage complex parental complaints and unreasonable parent behaviour. My focus and commitment to advising schools on the broken SEND system and equalities considerations is unwavering and I eagerly await reform which is desperately needed. Examples of the work I get involved with include:1. Complex pastoral matters including exclusions (representation and clerking in addition to ad hoc advice), admissions, safeguarding, governance, parental complaints, SEND and equalities issues; 2. Judicial Review3. Training on exclusions, admissions, complaints, equalities, safeguarding and strategic governance;4. Policy reviews and advice on the implications of legislative changes;5. Social media, reputation management, risk and compliance and defamation;6. GovernanceI speak at national conferences and contribute to a wide range of publications.Specialties: Exclusions, equalities and complex parental complaints.

Listed skills include Legal Research, Corporate Governance, Education Law, and Academies.