{"id":2168,"date":"2010-01-28T13:51:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T17:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=2168"},"modified":"2016-12-12T17:45:11","modified_gmt":"2016-12-12T21:45:11","slug":"can-school-attorneys-legally-attend-iep-meetings-jeff-responds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/can-school-attorneys-legally-attend-iep-meetings-jeff-responds\/","title":{"rendered":"Can School Attorneys Legally Attend IEP Meetings? &#8211; Jeff Responds"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/gallery\/share-button-gray.png\" style=\"border:0px\" alt=\"Share\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_border=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"wrightslaw\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"Can%20School%20Attorneys%20Legally%20Attend%20IEP%20Meetings%3F%20-%20Jeff%20Responds\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>In November, I offered to research an issue and write a legal memorandum about whether an attorney for the school can legally attend an IEP team meeting.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you to all who posted comments on my article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=1711\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Can School Attorneys Legally Attend IEP Meetings?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I am finally out of finals and through the holidays and I wanted to respond to your comments.\u00a0 Sorry for the delay.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;These attorneys actively misrepresent laws and safeguards.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>David, have you ever tried to tape an IEP Meeting?\u00a0<!--more--> I would think that this would cut down on the attorney &#8220;mistakes.&#8221;\u00a0 See <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=1654\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Tape-Recording IEP Meetings<\/span><\/a> at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=1654\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=1654<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Power of Attorney is no longer recognized by the school district as a legal document.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I wonder if the attorneys were trying to split hairs between a general power of attorney and a specific power of attorney (SPOA) for education.\u00a0 It could be that the school wants specific language concerning what rights the adult student is transferring to the parent.<\/p>\n<p>The Virginia Department of Education has a good guide and a sample SPOA at<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.doe.virginia.gov\/special_ed\/regulations\/state\/transfer_rights_students_disabilities.pdf\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">http:\/\/www.doe.virginia.gov\/special_ed\/regulations\/state\/transfer_rights_students_disabilities.pdf<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;I agree that attorneys attending IEP meetings should be subject to subpoena and cross examination in subsequent due process hearings.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Glenn, James and Kelli, granting your wish would likely impact parents more than the school.\u00a0 Can you imagine if the school could essentially &#8220;terminate&#8221; the parent&#8217;s attorney by subpoena?\u00a0 Few parents have the hundreds of thousands of dollars that school districts do for multiple attorneys.\u00a0 The cost to the parent of hiring another attorney to start from scratch would be huge.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;The attorney, though claiming special knowledge about the child, was not required to share what that knowledge was though he was permitted to participate in making decisions regarding the child&#8217;s IEP.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Glenn, I agree that this does not make logical sense:\u00a0 special knowledge about the child is not the same as special knowledge about special education law.\u00a0 Yet, as the Department of Education notes, &#8220;Paragraph (c) of \u00a7300.344 provides that the determination of the knowledge or special expertise of any individual described in paragraph (a)(6) shall be made by the party (parents or public agency) who invited the individual to be a member of the IEP team.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In November, I offered to research an issue and write a legal memorandum about whether an attorney for the school can legally attend an IEP team meeting. Thank you to <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/can-school-attorneys-legally-attend-iep-meetings-jeff-responds\/\">Continue Reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,137,5,18,136],"tags":[1320,132,79,1299,504],"class_list":["post-2168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocacy","category-attorneys","category-idea-2004","category-ieps","category-strategies","tag-attorneys","tag-iep-meetings","tag-iep-team-members","tag-ieps","tag-specific-power-of-attorney-for-education"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2168"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20226,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2168\/revisions\/20226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}