I can defend myself but not my disabled child?

May 6, 2006
Nonlawyer Father Wins His Suit Over Education, and the Bar Is Upset
By ADAM LIPTAK
Several years ago, Brian Woods sued the school board in Akron, Ohio, on behalf of his autistic son Daniel. Mr. Woods wanted to make sure that Daniel received an appropriate education, and he won several concessions and about $160,000.
"I soundly defeated a team of lawyers," Mr. Woods, an adjunct professor at Cuyahoga Community College, said yesterday.
When the Cleveland Bar Association got wind of Mr. Woods's victory recently, it also went to court — to sue Mr. Woods.
The bar association said he had engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. It sought a $10,000 fine, lawyers' fees and a promise that he would not continue to assist other parents seeking to represent their own children in court.
The Ohio Supreme Court was not impressed. On April 20, it ordered the bar association to produce evidence by next week in support of its complaint, saying the available facts suggest that Mr. Woods "has not engaged in the unauthorized practice of law."
With that deadline looming and after reports on the controversy in The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, the bar association backed down. Sort of.
In a statement on Wednesday, its president, P. Kelly Tompkins, said the complaint against Mr. Woods "had a legitimate, technical basis." Mr. Woods did, after all, represent someone else in court — his son — without being a lawyer.
The filing of the complaint was nonetheless a mistake, Mr. Tompkins said, withdrawing it and apologizing to the Woods family. The association should not have considered filing the complaint, he said, until after the United States Supreme Court acted in a case it might decide to hear this month.
That case involves two other Ohio parents, Jeff and Sandee Winkelman. In November, the federal appeals court in Cincinnati gave the Winkelmans, who had been representing their autistic son Jacob in a suit against the Parma, Ohio, school district, 30 days to find a lawyer or have their case dismissed. Justice John Paul Stevens issued a stay of that order in December.
Federal courts around the country are divided over the circumstances in which parents who are not lawyers may represent their children in federal court under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act.
Ms. Winkelman said the ruling of the appeals court effectively barred the courthouse doors to her son. Her family, she said, simply could not afford a lawyer.
"One quoted $60,000," Ms. Winkelman said. "She wanted $2,600, biweekly. I was in tears. I decided to go on my own. We had no money, and we had nowhere to send Jacob to school. When you're in a do-or-die situation, you do what you have to do."
Christina H. Peer, a lawyer for the Parma district, said there were good reasons for requiring that only lawyers might handle such cases.
"People who are not attorneys cannot represent the interests of another in a court of law," Ms. Peer said.
Where disabled minors are involved, she added, courts should be even more reluctant to let others, even parents, speak on the minors' behalf.
"Do they have the skills," Ms. Peer asked, "to adequately represent the rights of their children?"
A lawyer for Susan Woods, Daniel's mother, said he was furious that the bar association had pursued charges of unauthorized practice of law against her and her husband.
"I'm very angry about it," the lawyer, Allan M. Michelson, said. "I'm upset that my fellow attorneys should spend their time like this."
In an interview, Mr. Tompkins of the bar association sounded conciliatory.
"Our board had not approved this filing," he said. "We had a breakdown internally on this."
But he refused to rule out the possibility of further action after the Supreme Court acted in the Winkelman case.
"We'll stand down until it's resolved," Mr. Tompkins said.
Mr. Woods said he suspected that the peace might be temporary.
"The issue is," he said, "to shut me up so that I can't beat them again."
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company