The Office of General Counsel (OGC) provides, manages and coordinates all legal services for the CSU. The General Counsel is the chief legal officer with full authority and responsibility for the legal affairs of the institution. This includes providing representation and advice to the Board of Trustees, the chancellor, university leaders and all CSU campuses. The General Counsel approves the retention of outside counsel and has authority over the resolution of claims. The General Counsel also serves as secretary of the Board of Trustees.
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Andrew Jones is the Executive Vice Chancellor and General Counsel for the California State University. He also serves as the Secretary of the Board of Trustees. His responsibilities include supervising the operations of the Office of General Counsel (OGC) and overseeing all legal services for the 23-campus California State University system. Jones's legal team includes Litigators and University Counsel who provide all manner of legal services to the campuses in areas as varied as labor and employment (e.g., discrimination and harassment, collective bargaining, the FLSA and privacy), business and finance (e.g., capital planning and facilities management, CEQA, contracts and procurement), and academic and student affairs (e.g., immigration and residency, student discipline, student loans, and Title IX and athletic association compliance).
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Legal services are centralized to facilitate and streamline the efficient delivery of consistent advice. Within this framework, each campus is assigned a dedicated university counsel who manages all legal affairs for that campus. In addition to regular visits to campus, campus counsel interacts daily with the President’s Cabinet and other campus leadership to support their work. Campus counsel also manage all litigation arising on their campus. We also have five full-time litigators who handle all types of litigation in all types of venues. The litigators also handle administrative hearings involving employee discipline or dismissal, and arbitrations concerning the denial of tenure or promotion for faculty.
OGC attorneys are assigned to one of six OGC teams – Litigation, Business & Finance, Human Resources, Academic & Student Affairs, External Affairs and Civil Rights -- to better serve the functional divisions in the Office of the Chancellor. OGC attorneys are also responsible for developing expertise in areas of law where issues arise with enough frequency to warrant specialized skill within the OGC. These specialty areas include topics such as First Amendment, Athletics, CEQA, Information Security, Collective Bargaining, Discrimination and Harassment, Disability Accommodation, Student Fees, Contracts, Public Records Act Requests, Open Meetings Laws, Title IX, Intellectual Property and Tax issues – just to name a few.
The OGC is a collaborative, problem-solving team of 32 attorneys and 14 support staff committed to providing excellent service and support. We form proactive partnerships with campus and systemwide clients and work closely with them to understand and achieve their objectives while minimizing risk and cost.