A Philosophy of Cooperation and Respect
Michael Zatopa, Ellen Stephens and Laurene Kurzrock have been providing legal services to families of special needs children, guardians and adoptive parents, and the private organizations and individuals who serve them for over 70 years combined.
While no legal professional can guarantee that the problem a family or social service provider is facing will be solved, our firm has, in 85-90% of our accepted cases, obtained a settlement or resolution of the case that is satisfactory to our clients. For our family clients, we have been able to obtain a substantially improved program of special education for their child, or a significant portion of the reimbursement for services our clients obtained due to the failure of the school district to provide an appropriate educational program to their child. For our corporate clients, we provide legal counseling to address the special education issues that arise in dealing with a public school district or regulatory issues with the California Department of Education, while maximizing a cooperative relationship with the public agencies.
Our firm has developed over the years a clear philosophy regarding legal services to our clients. We recognize that most seeking our help have concerns about legal costs and do not want to engage in legal warfare, but to obtain a particular result for the child as quickly and economically as possible. Our firm also recognizes that because the "opposition" in almost all of our cases are public school districts, charter schools and regional centers, there are several realities that must be recognized in obtaining the results our clients seek. By recognizing the following realities, we have been able to more efficiently and effectively meet the needs of our clients:
The financial ability of government agencies to engage in legal action is vastly superior to that of the majority of clients, creating a large imbalance in bargaining position.
Because of strong political disagreements in our society about the role of government in paying for social services, there is a radical gap between legal mandates placed on public agencies and the tax dollars allocated to fund the mandated services.
Our firm does not see the government or its representatives as the enemy. We try to work with public employees to enforce legal rights and services to which our clients are entitled and work forcefully and cooperatively if a dispute arises.
Our firm leaves the "blame game" to others. It serves no purpose and more importantly deflects our focus away from what is most important to you: the results our clients seek.
While we are staunch advocates for our clients, we recognize that the tone and manner of that advocacy can be as important as the substance of what we seek. Emotions and personality can stand in the way of settling a legal conflict. We have a track record of resolving disputes through settlement, not litigation. By focusing on the legal issues of the case, we are able to defuse the emotional and personality factors that harm rather than help our clients.
We do recognize that there are times when litigation is the only way to enforce our clients’ legal rights. While we will litigate if necessary, our job is to obtain the result with as little of your resources as possible, with litigation only when no other option is possible.