Frequently asked questions

It depends on scope and conflicts, but we're built for speed. For most matters we can be in intake within days of a signed engagement letter. If you're facing a deadline, tell us up front and we'll move accordingly.

Our practice is centered on U.S. federal civil rights frameworks, Title IX, Title VI, Title VII, ADA/504, and Clery, so our engagements are with U.S. institutions. We don't currently process EU or UK personal data in the regular course of business. If you have a cross-border question, get in touch.

Fractional and interim leadership is scoped per institution: coverage during a leave, capacity during a surge, or a standing partnership. Most engagements use a fee cap or fixed-fee structure; we don't bill on contingency. Reach out for an estimate.

Yes. We support institutions through open OCR matters, including resolution-agreement negotiation and the operational work an active matter requires. Where privilege matters, we often recommend engaging us through your general counsel.

Yes. We'll give you a scope and an estimate before any engagement letter is signed, and there's no cost to have that conversation.

We reserve limited capacity for pro-bono and advisory work. Reach out and tell us about your situation. We can't promise availability, but we'll consider it.

We provide interim, fractional, and standing coordination, including long-term partnerships for institutions that can't justify a full-time role. A fractional partnership can run indefinitely; most engagement letters include a 30-day mutual termination provision so neither side is locked in.

Tell us immediately. We're set up to move quickly on deadline-driven matters and will prioritize accordingly once an engagement letter is in place.

Yes. We regularly take over matters in progress, reviewing the file, preserving the record, and carrying the investigation through to a defensible written report.

No blanket minimum. Most engagement letters include a 30-day mutual termination provision.

A conflicts check runs before anything substantive, against parties, counsel, and related matters. If a conflict emerges mid-engagement we tell you immediately, and either wall it off, substitute a practitioner, or withdraw. We will not continue a matter we cannot hold cleanly. Conflicts and neutrality

We raise it with you in writing. If interference continues, or if a practitioner is pressured toward a particular outcome, we will pause and escalate rather than produce a compromised record. Those terms are published before you sign. Engagement protections

Nothing outside the agreed scope proceeds on a handshake. A material change is priced and confirmed in writing before the work continues, so a fee never moves without a decision you made. Engagement protections

Professional liability, general liability, cyber, and digital media cover, with waiver of subrogation, blanket additional insured, and primary and non-contributory endorsements available. A certificate is provided on request during vendor review. Request a certificate

Program registrations are billed through Stripe, our payment processor (major cards, plus wallet options where available). Institutional engagements are invoiced.

For cohort programs: a full refund up to 14 days before the start date, or 50% up to 7 days before. Within 7 days it's non-refundable but can be applied as a credit toward a future cohort in the same calendar year. Workshops are fully refundable up to 48 hours before the start. If we cancel, all registrants receive a full refund.

Yes. Engagements are invoiced monthly in arrears, net 30, and we can provide the documentation your purchasing or accounting office needs.

Yes. Payments run through Stripe; we never see or store full card numbers.

Engagements are billed monthly against the engagement letter. For program tuition, reach out. We can often accommodate institutional purchasing processes.

Yes, for institutional engagements and group registrations. Email billing@fractionalcoordinator.com to set it up.

Engagement invoices are due net 30. Past-due invoices accrue interest at 9% per year (0.75% per month) or the maximum rate permitted by law, whichever is lower.

Many employers reimburse professional development. We provide registration confirmations and attendance documentation you can submit to your employer's PD or tuition-reimbursement program.

Our certificates confirm completion of the program, not external accreditation. SHRM Recertification Provider status and state bar CLE accreditation are pursued and may not be in place when you register; we provide attendance documentation for self-submission. Our Certification Notice covers this in detail.

Cohort and retreat programs run on set dates, and any completion requirements, an assessment or a follow-up reflection, for example, have their own windows described on each program page.

You can transfer your seat to another person at the same institution at no charge before the program begins. Email training@fractionalcoordinator.com. Rescheduling follows the cancellation and credit policy in our Terms of Use.

Yes, custom institutional training tailored to your frameworks and context. Reach out to scope it.

Yes. A group rate applies automatically at checkout for 5 or more registrants from the same institution.

We pursue SHRM and state bar CLE recognition and provide hour-by-hour attendance documentation for self-submission. Availability varies by program and may not be in place at registration.

Certifications include an assessment and a credential; bootcamps are intensive multi-day cohorts; workshops are focused, shorter sessions on a specific framework or skill. Our retreats are the most immersive multi-day format.

Yes, contact training@fractionalcoordinator.com to arrange a retake.

We consider a limited number of scholarship and sliding-scale requests, especially from under-resourced institutions. Get in touch and tell us about your situation.

We recommend annual refreshers to keep pace with regulatory change. We retain your training records for ten years to support credential-verification requests.

The Knowledge Hub is our members' working library: regulatory intelligence, decision-making frameworks, tools and templates, and case studies. Membership tiers and details are listed on the Knowledge Hub Membership page.

Yes. Institutional and team memberships are available; contact us for team pricing.

Memberships renew from your account, and you'll get a reminder before the renewal date.

Use the password-reset link on the sign-in page. If you're still stuck, email us and we'll help you regain access.

Reach out and we'll walk you through what's included before you commit.

Institutional members get scheduled time with our team for questions on live matters, program design, and regulatory developments.

Membership and professional-development fees are often deductible as a business expense. Check with your tax advisor.

Individual memberships stay with you; institutional seats stay with the institution. Contact us to update your record.

OnePointe is an AI-powered case-management platform for civil rights compliance, built for the intake-to-resolution workflow at universities and PK-12 districts. It is a separate product; learn more at onepointe.ai.

No. OnePointe is the case-management software product; the FC Client Portal is where engagement clients access their own materials. They're separate systems.

Request a demo at onepointe.ai, or get in touch and we'll connect you.

Pricing is available on the OnePointe site and scales with your institution. See onepointe.ai.

OnePointe's application database and authentication run on Supabase, in U.S. data centers. Supabase is SOC 2 Type II compliant.

Integration options are covered on onepointe.ai. Reach out to discuss the systems you use.

Yes. OnePointe is available as standalone software; you don't have to engage FC's services to use it.

Yes. Information shared in an engagement is confidential. We don't disclose client identities, matter specifics, or anything that could identify a complainant, respondent, or witness, except with your written consent, as required by legal process, or as necessary to defend FC. The same expectation applies to case discussions in training.

Investigation files are retained per your engagement letter, typically seven years from the close of the matter, unless you request earlier return or destruction. After the retention window, files are securely destroyed and a destruction certificate is issued.

Investigation files are confidential institutional records, and privileged work product where the engagement establishes privilege. We hold them on your behalf under the engagement letter.

We respond to legal process and support institutions through OCR matters. Disclosure otherwise requires your written consent.

Yes. NDAs are commonly part of engagement onboarding and are executed electronically via DocuSign.

Access is restricted to authorized FC personnel working your matter, and it's audited. Active investigation files are held on FC-managed private infrastructure in U.S. data centers.

Discoverability depends on privilege and the facts. Engagement letters specify whether work product is intended to be privileged, and engaging us through your general counsel helps preserve privilege. This isn't legal advice. Consult your counsel.

Not without your written permission. Investigation files are never anonymized and republished as case studies without the institution's written consent.

For fractional leadership, records are institutional records held under your retention schedule, not ours. For investigations, our working file is held under our own schedule, typically seven years from closure, then destroyed with a certificate issued to you. The engagement letter states which applies. Records retention policy

We notify you promptly unless the law forbids it, we do not volunteer material, and we give you the opportunity to object or seek a protective order before anything is produced. Costs of responding are addressed in the engagement letter. Engagement protections

We use it for drafting support and document handling under an enterprise agreement that excludes our inputs and outputs from training. No determination is made by a model, every file is reviewed by the practitioner whose name is on it, and we will operate without these tools if your policy requires it. AI in casework

On U.S.-based infrastructure. Application data runs on Supabase (U.S.); active investigation files and privileged work product are held on FC-managed private servers in U.S. data centers. Our Privacy Policy lists every subprocessor.

In PK-12 and higher-ed engagements, the institution is the data controller and FC processes student information only on its behalf, as needed to perform the engagement, consistent with FERPA's school-official framework. Specifics are set in the engagement letter.

We don't currently process EU or UK personal data in the regular course of business and haven't designated an Article 27 representative. If an engagement requires substantial EU processing, we'll designate one and disclose it. See our Privacy Policy.

No. We do not use personal information from investigation files to train artificial-intelligence systems.

If we become aware of a breach affecting personal information, we notify affected individuals and applicable regulators in accordance with applicable law.

No. We don't sell personal information, and we don't share it with third parties for their own marketing.

Yes, email privacy@fractionalcoordinator.com. We respond within 30 days, with a possible 30-day extension for complex requests. Records in active engagement files can't be unilaterally deleted without the engaging institution's consent.

The site is built to WCAG 2.1 AA. If any part of it, or any document we publish, is not usable for you, tell us and we will provide the content in another format and fix the underlying problem. Accessibility statement

Only what is needed to remember your consent choice. Nothing analytic or advertising runs unless you accept it, declining is a real choice rather than a delay, and you can change your mind at any time from the footer. Cookie policy

Yes. It is published in the privacy policy and provided in full during vendor review, together with responses to a security questionnaire. Privacy policy

Yes: community colleges, four-year institutions, and university systems.

Yes, and we often do. Where privilege matters, we frequently work through or alongside your counsel.

Yes, including the operational realities specific to intercollegiate athletics.

We assess jurisdiction up front and run the matter under the right framework or frameworks. This is one of the most common and most-missed issues in the field. Our playbooks address these intersections directly.

Yes. Proactive compliance review, documentation, and audit readiness are core to our work.

Yes. We coordinate our process with applicable collective-bargaining and employment obligations.

Yes: public districts, charter schools, and private schools.

We build mandatory-reporting obligations into intake and process design, coordinated with your counsel and state requirements.

Yes, governance-level training for boards is available.

Yes. Our ADA/504 work covers the accommodation and grievance processes that intersect with IEPs and 504 plans.

Yes, we support state-level investigations as well as federal OCR matters.

Contracted. Network practitioners take defined engagements with agreed scope and rate rather than a salaried seat. The core team is separate and salaried.

The firm is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, and engaged nationally. Most work is remote, with travel where an engagement requires on-site presence.

No. We care whether you can hold a fair process under pressure and document it properly. Student conduct, human resources, legal, and advocacy backgrounds all show up on this team.

Sometimes, and it depends entirely on conflicts. We run a conflicts check before any engagement and will tell you plainly where a matter is unavailable to you.

Yes. Certification and fellowship graduates are a natural source for the network, though completing a program is not a promise of an engagement.

Write anyway. The network is open continuously and most people who join the firm arrive that way rather than through a posting. Start the form →

People already close to this work: student conduct staff, human resources generalists who inherited investigations, deputy coordinators, recent law graduates, and career changers with adjacent judgment. We are less interested in credentials than in whether you can hold a fair process under pressure.

No. Several of our practitioners arrived from student conduct, advocacy, human resources, and legal backgrounds. What matters is whether you can carry a process fairly and document it properly.

The fellowship runs 17 months. Intake is rolling rather than annual, so there is no application window to miss: write to us whenever you are ready and we will tell you where the next place stands.

Yes. Fellows are paid hourly for the hours they work, because the work is real and it is ours. On completion, a $2,000 research and support stipend is paid on top, toward the reading, materials, and research the fellowship asks of you. Rate, expected hours, and all other terms are confirmed in writing before you accept a place.

Real engagements, scoped to what a fellow can responsibly carry, always under the supervision of a practitioner who holds the matter. We take no more than two fellows at a time, which is what makes that supervision real rather than nominal. Fellows are not observers and they are not interns fetching documents.

Yes, under supervision and only after background screening is complete. Fellows carry the same confidentiality obligation as every practitioner working under our name, during the fellowship and permanently afterward, and act as mandatory reporters in every engagement.

Most of the work is remote. Travel happens where an engagement requires someone on site, and it is agreed in advance rather than sprung on you.

A certification teaches a framework and assesses whether you learned it. The fellowship puts you inside live practice with someone senior reading your work. They serve different purposes and many people do both.

It is not a promise of either. The practitioner network is the usual next step for fellows who finish well, and we say that plainly rather than implying a pipeline that does not exist.

Write us a short letter about what draws you to civil rights compliance and what you have already done that is adjacent to it. Then a working conversation, then background screening, then placement with a supervising practitioner. Start the application →

If you want a credential that proves competence, not just attendance, and a working reference for the role, yes. Our certifications include an assessment and are built for practicing coordinators.

Start with a foundational certification or a framework workshop, plus the relevant playbook. Reach out and we'll point you to the right entry point.

Often, yes. We provide the documentation to submit. See the training questions above on CE credit.

The Fellows program is designed for early-career practitioners. Reach out and we'll help you figure out whether it's the right fit.

Yes. Our community, including Coffee Talks, connects practitioners for off-the-record peer exchange.

We welcome practitioner contributions to Insights and guests on the Blueroom Podcast. Get in touch.

No. Fractional Coordinator is a civil rights compliance firm, not a law firm. Our work is informed by law and often coordinated with attorneys, but it isn't a substitute for legal advice.

We're not litigation counsel. We conduct neutral investigations and provide compliance support; we don't advocate for a party in litigation, and we don't bill on contingency.

We don't give legal advice, guarantee outcomes, take contingency work, or serve as a party's litigator. We commit to the quality of our process, not to a specific result.

We're practitioners who've done this work inside institutions. We pair investigations with fractional leadership, certified training, and software, with a consistent standard: outcomes that hold up under audit.

Where an engagement requires it, yes. Several of our subprocessors, including Google Workspace and Zoom, are HIPAA-eligible under separate BAAs. Talk to us about your requirements.

Reach out at hello@fractionalcoordinator.com or through our contact page. We're happy to help.