Karen L. VanDijk

Partner

Ms. Van Dijk joined Best Best & Krieger LLP in the spring of 2009, and is a member of the firm’s Education Law practice group. Her primary practice area is education law, with a secondary emphasis in civil rights litigation, employment law, eminent domain and municipal law. Prior to joining Best Best & Krieger, Ms. Van Dijk was a public law partner in the Costa Mesa office of Rutan & Tucker LLP, where she was employed from 1998 to 2009.

Ms. Van Dijk has numerous school district clients, through which she has acquired extensive experience with a broad range of legal topics. Her experience includes services for autistic children, payment for non-public school placements, public and private school closures, school and district boundary adjustments, student disciplinary actions, appropriate individualized educational programs, jurisdictional questions arising from state dependents and wards placed in private and public facilities, state and federal compliance issues, student eligibility, licensed care institutions and medical facilities, residential placement issues, residency issues, stay put, services to students in private schools, the provision of related services to medically fragile students, Section 504 issues, IDEA procedural issues, attorneys’ fees issues, and a host of similar topics. She represents clients in civil litigation in both state and federal courts, as well as in the administrative law settings unique to education practice.

Ms. Van Dijk graduated from California State University at Fullerton in 1995 with a B.A. in Criminal Justice and received her J.D. from the University of Southern California Law School in 1999. During law school, she served as a member of USC’s National Moot Court Team and was a finalist in the Hale Moot Court Honors Competition. She also served as a member of the Hale Moot Court Honors Board.

Ms. Van Dijk is a member of the State Bar of California, the Orange County Bar Association and the California Council of School Attorneys. She is admitted to practice law in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and the Ninth Circuit.

Education

• University of Southern California (USC), J.D.
• California State University, Fullerton, B.A.

Bar Admissions

• California