Jason Schwartz and Cynthia Chen McTernan Discuss Firm’s Higher Education Work With National Law Journal
In the Media | September 17, 2026
National Law Journal
Partner Jason Schwartz remarked in an interview with the National Law Journal that Gibson Dunn has become the “break glass in case of emergency firm” for college and universities dealing with highly sensitive matters. Jason is a leader of the firm’s Higher Education Industry Group and said he is advising more than double the number of university clients in highly sensitive matters as he did three years ago. The firm has represented more than half of the top 10 U.S. News & World Report-ranked colleges and universities, approximately three-quarters of the top 20, and approximately half of the top 50.
The Higher Education Industry Group brings together 85 attorneys from across the firm to address client needs, including advising universities in federal and state investigations, employment, civil rights and tort-type litigation, regulatory, and business matters.
“We’ve been doing this work for a while, but it’s kind of built up to a crescendo where our university clients are really facing extraordinary, unprecedented issues, and we thought it made sense to formalize what we were doing,” he said.
Jason noted that the type of work the firm does for higher education clients makes it stand apart from competitors. “We don’t do a lot of the day-to-day advice and counseling and compliance work,” he said. “We’re really more of the break glass in case of emergency firm for colleges and universities. And unfortunately, that fire alarm has been ringing more often.”
Cynthia Chen McTernan, a leader of the Higher Education Industry Group, added that the firm designed the industry group in a cross-disciplinary way to reflect the “multidisciplinary approach” the Trump administration has taken in examining higher education.