Aaron Lacey is a Partner at Thompson Coburn where he chairs the firm’s Higher Education Practice and assists institutions to navigate a wide range of complex legal and regulatory matters. Aaron has substantive experience in federal, state, and accrediting agency laws and standards that govern postsecondary institutions, and regularly advises on issues involving students, faculty and staff, facilities, academics, governance, and operations. He also leads the Firm’s extremely active higher education transactional practice. He and his colleagues have experience negotiating, documenting, and implementing merger, asset acquisition, stock acquisition, joint venture, and religious sponsorship and affiliation transactions for both nonprofit and proprietary higher education clients. In recent years, the practice has managed numerous non-traditional arrangements, as well, including for-profit to non-profit conversions and the acquisition of distressed institutions.
Aaron and his colleagues are valued for their deep understanding of the postsecondary regulatory framework, including requirements relating to the federal financial aid programs, incentive compensation, distance education, the Clery Act, FERPA, and Title IX, among others. In October 2017, Aaron was selected by the U.S. Department of Education to serve as one of 17 negotiators charged with overhauling the Department’s complex and controversial “borrower defense” rule. The Department appointed him to negotiate on behalf of general counsels, attorneys, and compliance officers at postsecondary institutions nationwide.
Aaron routinely represents institutions in administrative proceedings before state licensing entities, accrediting agencies, and the U.S. Department of Education, including matters arising from audits, program reviews, and investigations of the Office of Inspector General. He assists with the management of regulatory and government agency relationships, policy creation and implementation, strategic planning, and compliance systems design. In support of institutional initiatives, Aaron drafts and negotiates a wide variety of agreements, including domestic and international articulation, consortium, licensing, marketing, and bundled service provider (OPM) contracts.
The host of the Firm’s popular Higher Education Webinar Series, and editorial director of REGucation, the Firm’s higher education law and policy blog, Aaron is a frequent writer and speaker on topics relating to higher education policy and regulation. He is a member of the National Association of College and University Attorneys and of the American Bar Association.
