Four decades of advocating for homeschool freedom have taken HSLDA’s attorneys to legislatures, courtrooms, and conference halls. Now, that experience is opening the door to educate another influential audience: practicing attorneys.
In July, three HSLDA attorneys who are also homeschool graduates (Director of Litigation Peter Kamakawiwoole, Senior Counsel Will Estrada, and Legal Counsel Amy Buchmeyer) traveled to Richmond to deliver a seminar on homeschool law in Virginia (where our office is located) and across the country. The trio presented at the request of the Virginia Law Foundation as part of the courses it offers to help attorneys meet continuing education requirements for retaining their licenses.
Understanding the Law
Events like these are incredibly helpful to support the homeschool movement. Our attorneys agreed, for example, that helping others in the legal profession better understand homeschool law could defuse one of the biggest sources of conflict for the families we serve.
Misunderstandings of the law are one of the most common points of conflict. In 2025, Kamakawiwoole and Estrada teamed up to oppose a Pennsylvania school district that was making demands of homeschool families in violation of state law. HSLDA backed a lawsuit against the district, which resulted in the district settling and agreeing to end its extralegal demands.
Estrada said this kind of training—spreading accurate knowledge about what homeschool statutes say and how they are applied—will help prevent similar crises in the future.
As Kamakawiwoole pointed out at the time of the victory: “Cases like these rest on the rule of law and the legislature’s exclusive control over its own homeschool statute.”
Homeschool Overlap
Knowing more about homeschool law benefits attorneys working in other fields, too.
Buchmeyer noted that “as homeschooling continues to grow, it ends up affecting so many other areas of life, including different aspects of the law.”
HSLDA’s legal team routinely helps families whose situations overlap with other areas of jurisprudence, including job discrimination, child health and welfare, and even federal benefits like Social Security. Professionals in those fields are better equipped to reach just outcomes when they understand how the law protects the rights of homeschooling parents and children.
Events like the Richmond seminar also offer a chance to familiarize attendees with homeschooling more broadly.
“As much as the movement has expanded,” said Buchmeyer, “there’s a real need to dispel stereotypes about who homeschools and what homeschooling families look like. Though this topic doesn’t necessarily pertain directly to the law, it’s still part of the conversation.”
Reputation for Excellence
For Buchmeyer and Estrada, the July seminar was a repeat performance. The duo gave a similar presentation at the same venue in 2025 to about 300 attendees. The count for this year’s event, which was also delivered in-person and online, isn’t finalized yet since the seminar is slated for two more online presentations, each followed by live Q&A sessions.
Finally, all three attorneys observed that participating in a seminar of this type proved personally fulfilling as it allowed them to dive deep into a subject they are passionate about. They also noted that being invited to educate their colleagues speaks highly of HSLDA’s reputation as a leader with extensive experience in a unique area of the law.
“We are a nationwide homeschool advocacy organization, and there’s no one else that does what we do on the scale that we do it,” Buchmeyer said. “Other lawyers can touch on homeschool law, but no one else has our breadth of knowledge and experience on this topic.”