Michael Zatopa, Ellen Stephens and Laurene Kurzrock have been representing families of special needs children, and the organizations that serve them, for over 80 years combined. We hope this website provides you with information and resources to help you better understand the law and procedures that affect special needs children.

While we provide counseling to parents and organizations in a number of areas, our focus is on assisting parents access special education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the federal law that guarantees all disabled children a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE).  We also provide representation to private residential and day providers that contract with school districts to provide special education to those students for whom no appropriate publicly provided education is available.

Our essential philosophy is that while school districts have extensive obligations to disabled children under the IDEA, their budgets are woefully short of what is necessary to serve all entitled children.  School districts are not the enemy, they are messengers.  It is our goal in representing families to maximize the benefit to the children and to minimize an adversarial relationship with school districts and mitigate the legal cost.