March 2025 Department Debrief: Student Legal Services
March 21, 2025
Student Legal Services
To contact Student Legal Services: Call (614) 247-5853, email studentlegal@osu.edu, visit their website or review their frequently asked questions.
Department Debrief is a monthly article from the Parent and Family Relations office dedicated to helping family members and supporters better understand the services, opportunities and support offered by particular offices for students.
This month, our team met with members of Student Legal Services, a non-profit law firm that contracts with Ohio State to provide students with legal advice and representation regarding criminal defense, off-campus housing, immigration and more.
1. No Brainer Day was on Feb. 27, 2025. An Ohio State student asks you to tell them what Student Legal Services does because they are giving their brain a break for the day and don’t want to Google it. What would your 30-second elevator pitch be?
Molly Hegarty, the managing director of Student Legal Services (SLS), said the office is dedicated to providing advice, representation, education and resources on a variety of legal issues ranging from criminal- to civil-focused cases for Ohio State students.
“We are the lawyers for Ohio State students,” Hegarty said. “We contract with the university to provide these services to remove barriers to the success of students.”
Hegarty said SLS is a full-service litigation firm that also represents students in court.
“If a student is charged with a criminal misdemeanor or traffic offense in Franklin County, our attorneys are there every day and representing students in Franklin County,” Hegarty said. “If students are charged outside of Franklin County and in Ohio, we do have a reciprocal network of attorneys at other Student Legal Service’s programs, including Kent State, Wright State, Bowling Green, [Ohio University] and Toledo.”
Hegarty said if a student is charged in those jurisdictions and is eligible for SLS’s services, they are also eligible to receive services from those reciprocal networks.
“We also do represent students on civil matters in Franklin County as well,” Hegarty said. “So, for example, if they have a landlord-tenant issue, and they need to put their rent in escrow, we have our civil attorneys practicing in Franklin County court, both in municipal and court of common pleas as well.”
The legal issues SLS covers include criminal, traffic, off-campus housing, immigration, civil matters, notary and more, according to SLS’s website.
These services, Hegarty said, is fee-based and eligible students — those attending main campus, in a degree-seeking program, full or part-time and considered a student and not an employee — are automatically charged $40 for their first term of enrollment for the year, typically in the fall.
“Students are given the opportunity to waive the Student Legal Service’s fees in BuckeyeLink by the tuition and fee deadline, which is seven days before the start of the semester,” Hegarty said. “The majority of students choose to have Student Legal Services remain on their account so that they have access to our services.”
Hegarty said if a student were to waive the fee, they are no longer eligible to receive SLS’s services for that participation year, which runs from Aug. 1 to July 31.
“There are no exceptions, so if they’ve waived that and it is past the deadline, we are not able to put them back into the program,” Hegarty said.
Hegarty said, however, that SLS cannot represent one student against another student and cannot represent a student against the university or in Student Conduct hearings.
“That said, we do have some ways we can provide advice, like in a roommate situation, we are able to provide general advice about what that student’s legal rights and responsibilities are, even if that other person is a student,” Hegarty said. “We just can’t represent them.”
When SLS is contacted by a student in any format, Hegarty said it is automatically protected under attorney-client privilege, making it confidential.
“We are very much led by what the student wants,” Hegarty said. “That said, with their permission, we are allowed to include others including parents in those conversations and the representation as well in terms of helping us guide the student.”
Hegarty said SLS often tells students it is in their best interest to include parents in any situation.
For lease reviews, a common service utilized by Ohio State students, Hegarty said they often encourage students to involve their parents, even offering students the opportunity to include their parents phone number when selecting a meeting slot with an attorney.
2. How can parents and families become involved with Student Legal Services?
Hegarty said Buckeye Family Connection has become the perfect avenue for sharing information with students, parents and family members.
Buckeye Family Connection is a source of news and information for students at Ohio State, which families have access to join provided by Parent and Family Relations. It includes access to important campus news and deadlines, personalized newsletters on your schedule, announcements via email and the ability to share content with friends, families and your student.
“Now that Buckeye Family Connection is really active, we find that to be a better avenue to get information out to students,” Hegarty said. “We are trying to utilize the university’s avenues for communication with parents.”
Hegarty said she is also active on the Parent and Family general and class-based Facebook Pages to form connections with families.
“When you think about these law offices, there is a misconception that the more you pay, the better service you get, and that is not necessarily true,” Hegarty said. “So, I try to monitor those [Facebook Pages] and respond to different questions.”
Hegarty said, however, she primarily engages in situations that provide an opportunity to share information, help students and connect with parents and families.
3. If you could offer one word of advice to parents, families and/or students at Ohio State, what would you say?
“Be supportive and guide your student, but do not takeover,” Hegarty said. “We have to let students figure these things out, and that doesn’t mean you let them do it alone, but at a certain point, you have to let those baby’s fly out of the nest.”
As a parent, Hegarty said she understands the difficulty of such a process, but not letting students navigate their own experiences is a disservice to them in the long run.
Brooke Tacsar
Student Assistant
Parent and Family Relations