Collective bargaining relationships in school districts are affected by court actions in a variety of ways. Courts have acted as a "surrogate legislature" by providing legal structures where legislation is absent and by modifying legislation through the process of statutory construction. This paper examines the courts' role in structuring bargaining relationships. Three detailed case studies are presented. The first case, from Hazelwood, Missouri, demonstrates how judicial involvement can affect the existence of bargaining relationships in a school district and the development of such relationships. The second case reviews the impact of the 1968 "Holland rule," requiring careful judicial scrutiny of a strike before injunctive relief is granted, upon subsequent events in Michigan and elsewhere. The third case study examines the initial effects of a California Supreme Court case and shows how the courts can affect the role of public employment relations boards in labor-management relations disputes in public education. In a concluding section the authors note that the courts, using familiar judicial paradigms, regularly structure bargaining relationships. The authors also discuss some of the underlying limitations of judicial structuring of school labor-management relations. (Author/MLF)