Mike Antonucci has a good post about the legal protections teachers unions offer to their members. He gets at the misconceptions many teachers have about this benefit (that most never need anyway). Namely many teachers think the protection is akin to an insurance policy when in practice the union can decide whether or not to provide someone legal representation. In addition, it can be confusing for teachers to parse out what activities they’re protected for anyway and which they could have legal exposure in the first place. Even in our litigious society they’re not as exposed as many think.