Leticia McGowan

Treasurer

Leticia D. McGowan is the General Counsel of Richardson Independent School District. As the General Counsel, Ms. McGowan advises the Board of Trustees, Superintendent and staff on a variety of legal issues, including governance, business transactions, personnel and student issues. Prior to joining Richardson ISD, Ms. McGowan served as in-house counsel at Dallas Independent School District for 22 years where her practice areas included public information requests; contracts; Americans with Disabilities Act; EEOC; OCR; sexual harassment; Title IX issues; investigations; confidentiality issues; custody issues; and policy review. In addition, Ms. McGowan has taught a Texas School Law class for the University of North Texas’s Department of Education’s Masters degree program.

She also is a frequent speaker on education law issues including, but are not limited to, sexual harassment prevention, handling custody disputes, conducting high profile investigations, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, Texas Public Information Act, contracts, and tort liability. Ms. McGowan attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas for her undergraduate education, where she graduated cum laude. She earned her J.D. degree from the University of Texas School of Law.

While in law school, Ms. McGowan worked as a law clerk at the General Services Commission (since renamed the Texas Building and Procurement Commission) in Austin, Texas. Upon successfully passing the bar exam, she was hired as legal counsel at the Commission. While at the Commission, Ms. McGowan’s client divisions included human resources, open records, procurement, leasing, facilities and space management and customer service. One of the enduring legacies of her tenure at the Commission is the official Texas Public Information Act sign, which she co-authored, outlining the rights and responsibilities of governmental entities and requestors.

Ms. McGowan currently serves as a board member for the School Law Section of the State Bar of Texas and member of the in-house counsel committee for the National Council of School Attorneys. She is also currently part of the interest group working to establish an education law committee for the Dallas Bar Association. Ms. McGowan previously served as the editor of the School Law Section’s Newsletter and served as the Chair of the Texas Council of School Attorneys. The October 2011 edition of the Texas Bar Journal, which focuses on School Law, includes an article written by Ms. McGowan, entitled “The Education of Undocumented Children.”

In her “spare” time, Ms. McGowan is active in the local graduate chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and is a founding member of the Village Giving Circle at the Texas Women’s Foundation.