The purpose of this handbook is to help educators at all levels to recognize potential legal hazards in educational settings and to learn how to negotiate the slick roads safely. The focus is on school and classroom issues, not district-level topics. Legal basics are discussed in the context of both informal anecdotes about actual situations and formal cases. Chapter 1 describes how laws for educators are made. The laws that affect schools and classrooms come from many sources: federal, state, and local. Chapters 2 through 10 focus on basic rights and responsibilities of educators. Topics include speech, conduct, and privacy issues; professional liability; classroom management; censorship, copyright, and the curriculum; supervision and discipline of students; property rights, confidentiality, and reporting requirements; chronic illness and medical emergencies; and sexual misconduct and sexual harassment. Chapter 11 discusses types of legal actions that educators may face and how to defend themselves. Legal citations follow each chapter. (MLF)