When sexual abuse allegations against assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky first surfaced at Penn State University in 1998, the school didn’t have an in-house lawyer. For legal counsel, Penn State relied primarily on the services of a single lawyer at a local firm. It was 12 years before the school hired a lawyer of its own. By then, the state attorney general and a grand jury were again investigating sexual abuse allegations involving Sandusky, and this time the school’s handling of the matter exploded into a national scandal.
That Penn State outsourced its legal function may be surprising, but it’s hardly unusual. In fact, it’s quite common. The cost of carrying a lawyer isn’t always worth it — especially for smaller institutions.
