About Leah Northener
Legal Assistant: Cindy Foreman | 972-694-3314 | cforeman@thompsonhorton.com
Leah was raised with a passion and appreciation for education. Her grandmother, an elementary school librarian, instilled in her from a young age the importance of education and the immense impact educators have on those they educate.
Your job is to educate students. Leah’s job is to let you. Leah is a former charter school general counsel and wife of a special education teacher who excels at navigating the complicated world of education law and enabling clients to keep their focus on education. She has worked closely with academic and administrative teams on training, policy development, student issues, fiscal compliance, and more. Leah does more than just tell you what the law is. She synthesizes it and makes it easy to understand for practical application by all levels of school district personnel. From teachers, to students, to administration and beyond, Leah’s hands-on approach with her clients eases legal stress and allows staff to keep the education of students at the forefront.
Leah prides herself on working closely with clients and responding quickly to provide a strong defense from the beginning to prevent problems from growing larger. Leah’s experience in-house provides her a unique understanding of school processes that allows her to identify legal issues that may have gone unnoticed. Schools with and without in-house counsel call Leah to advise on, handle, and identify emergent legal issues and provide a careful but proactive assessment and response.
In addition to providing advice and counsel, Leah has represented independent school districts, charter schools, private schools, colleges, and universities in litigation and administrative matters involving employment disputes, Title IX sexual harassment, special education and more.
Education
- J.D., Baylor University School of Law, 2019
- B.S., Texas Christian University, 2015
Licensing & Court Admissions
- Licensed in the State of Texas
- U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit