November 11, 2008

Lousy Rotten Parents - LPR Publications

There is a secret that insiders in special education have. In order to get a sense of the level of experience a lawyer has and how long he/she has been doing special education, you look for a row of blue binders, 11 inches high and 4 ¼ inches wide. These are known now as the IDELRs, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Law Reports. I just got the #51 binder. This is published by LRP publications on a biweekly basis for $1,245 per year. I go back a long way with LRP, discovering it in 1980. Every binder of decisions, statutes and regulations from 1979 until today sits on my shelves. Sometimes when lawyers come in and see the room circled in blue binders, the reaction is “How do you afford that? We can’t afford the subscription.” All I can do is laugh as I check out their suit and shoes. Often their wardrobe costs for one day equal a one year subscription. The entire history of special education is reflected within these priceless volumes. The problem is that LRP is a business whose only clients are lawyers and judges. They have never had any interest in working out a publication that makes case law available to parents and nonlawyers.

The IDELRs started out under another name- the Education for the Handicapped Law reports (EHLR). Their name matched the law for which they provided exclusive analysis and access. From 1979 until 1990, all law cited from them gave the volume number, the name and the page number in the volume, such as 16 EHLR, 253. The case was found in volume 16 on page 253. In the 1990 reauthorization, the name of the law changed to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Volume 18 announced the publication’s new name as the result of the legislative renaming. As special education grew, so did the size of the volumes. If you were to keep up to date, the one thing to be done every two weeks when a new set came in was to immediately sit down and read it cover to cover. Often if you were in the middle of a case, you might find just the right decision to help you win it or a decision to let you know how badly you were about to lose. You hoped that your adversary did not know about new precedents until after you decided to settle the case- knowing that with a new decision what had been winnable was now a dead duck.

Judges slowly began to discover the IDELRs. The first time I used one of its citations in a brief, about 1983, the judge asked me what that citation was. She had no idea and complained that I should learn how to do proper legal research. It was not long after that that the Office of Administrative Law in New Jersey began to subscribe. Of course the best story I’ve already told on this website someplace. But it’s worth telling again. In the 1980s, Madeline Will, George Will’s wife, was Director of OSERS, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. (She was yet another of Reagan’s gifts!) About 50 of us went to D.C. to work on getting better help for special education parents who could not get legal services. Each of us had different assignments. My husband and I met with Mrs. Will and he immediately looked for the famous blue binders. “Oh! Mrs. Will, I see you subscribe to the EHLRs.” “No, Dr. Arons, we don’t.” She walked over and opened an empty binder. “You see we can’t afford to subscribe, so we just use the binders for decoration.”

But as much as I need and use the IDELRs, an incident happened around 1990 that almost made me cancel the subscription. Melinda Maloney was the lawyer in charge of the publication at the time. I initiated a discussion with her about LRP hosting a law conference for parents only, in order to examine the issue of affordable legal representation. At first she was interested. How many parents would come? How much could they afford to pay? How many nonlawyers were there nationally? How many lawyers just represented parents? Did I have the approval of the national P&A (Protection and Advocacy)? Did I think P&A would be angry with LRP if they hosted such a conference? I was to give her some names and telephone numbers of parents who did various forms of advocacy so that she could explore whether or not LRP should do a parent conference. Perhaps we spoke six times over a period of four months. I was to draw up an overview of what the conference would look like and she would discuss this with LRP and give me their decision. Each time we spoke, she became increasingly tense. LRP wasn’t a charity, she said. Parents could not expect something for nothing. Any conference had to turn a profit. When we last spoke, she said that LRP was only for lawyers. Parents really didn’t count because they weren’t clients of the company. Her research led her to conclude that there were not enough parents who could pay to make any conference worth doing. I asked if she felt guilty about making money off the backs of their grief and give no payback. Since then I’ve used LRP as an acronym for Lousy Rotten Parents.

Advertisements included with each mailing describe LRP conferences. Volume 51 announced the 15th Annual School Attorneys Conference in San Antonio, Texas from January 29- 31, 2009.

Now celebrating its 15th year, LRP’s Special Education Attorneys
Conference is designed specifically for school attorneys and provides
an unparalleled opportunity to network among peers. Nationally
known experts help you deal with the legal and strategic issues you
face every day when representing school districts.

We know the criteria for having an LRP conference. It must make money. It must be well attended by those who can afford to pay. Protection and Advocacy approves. Attendees don’t expect something for nothing. And there are no messy parents to bring home the reality of unequal treatment between schools who have and parents who don’t. They are giving two ethics sessions. One is titled “Conquering the Unexpected: Reacting Appropriately to Due Process Hearing Surprises”. The other is “Keeping Secrets: What You Need To Know About Attorney-Client Privilege”. I keep hoping for a lawyer workshop called “Tell The Truth To Your Client” or “The Racket of Billable Hours”.

Has LRP ever had a conference just for attorneys representing parents? Nope. No money in it. Lousy Rotten Parents.