Grace H. Lee

Grace develops best practices on a wide range of legal issues facing independent schools, including employee relations, wage and hour compliance, student safety and disciplinary issues, investigations, and board governance and bylaws. She conducts internal compliance audits and drafts and reviews key documents used by independent schools, such as employment contracts, student enrollment contracts, vendor agreements, employee and student handbooks, conflict of interest policies and procedures, whistleblower policies, document retention and destruction plans, bylaws, insurance policies, and government documents.

In addition to providing her clients with proactive and preventive strategies, Grace has experience defending schools against claims regarding employment discrimination, harassment, retaliatory discharge, and wage and hour claims before administrative agencies and federal and state courts.

Grace previously served as vice president, legal affairs, with the National Business Officers Association (NBOA), where she assisted more than 1,300 member schools with a wide range of legal and compliance priorities and was responsible for identifying, communicating, and monitoring legal and human resources issues related to nonprofit independent school business operations. At NBOA, Grace developed and taught online courses, was a frequent contributor to NetAssets Magazine, and co-authored the book Culture Meets Compliance: The NBOA Guide to Assessing Human Resources at Independent Schools. Grace serves as legal counsel to NBOA.

Grace draws from her wealth of experience to conduct training for independent school professionals on a broad range of topics, including effective hiring practices, performance management, appropriate boundaries with students, and prevention of harassment and discrimination. Grace is a frequent presenter at national and local independent school association conferences, has conducted webinars, and has written extensively on legal issues affecting independent schools.