General Counsel

(512) 463-1808

The Texas State University System's Office of the Vice Chancellor and General Counsel (OGC) provides legal counsel to the Board of Regents, chancellor, universities and colleges that comprise the System, striving to offer timely and responsible advice about the broad array of legal issues that face modern, public, complex institutions of higher education. The OGC handles existing and potential legal matters in order to help those institutions achieve their missions and, where appropriate, provides strong, vigorous, and reasoned legal representation and advocacy. The authority granted to the Office of the Vice Chancellor and General Counsel appears in The Texas State University System Rules and Regulations, Chapter II, Paragraph 3.2 and Chapter III, Paragraph 2.

Specifically, the OGC provides the following services:

• Oversight of all System and institution legal work;
• Review of contracts and other agreements (required for documents submitted to board or chancellor for approval);
• Issuance of legal opinions;
• Policy, regulation, and rule review and legal drafting;
• Litigation defense (in conjunction with the Attorney General’s Office);
• Legal risk assessment;
• Authorizing and overseeing the work of outside legal counsel;
• Providing counsel for internal investigations and appeals;
• Legislative review, analysis, and research (as requested); and,
• Offering proactive legal training, including state-required ethics training.

Staff

Dr. Fernando Gomez, vice chancellor and general counsel, leads the division with the support of associate general counsel Diane Corley and executive and legal assistant Therese Sternenberg.