‘In a Struggle’
To establish the context of her complaint, the mother said she currently is “in a dramatic struggle for my child’s education, therapy and well-being.” She also acknowledged that “the scope and complexity of the relationships and legal issues between parents and school districts” regarding disabled students is daunting.
Discipline Cited
In a letter to Dr. Cote dated March 25, Ms. Copeland said that two years ago Mr. Fulfrost and other members of his former firm were “sanctioned for lying, unethically protracting a court battle and intentionally obstructing the fair finding in a case involving an autistic boy who subsequently lost years of therapy while his parents fought these dishonest lawyers in court.”
In the spirit of that court-imposed discipline, and after saying she saw signs of the punished conduct resurfacing, the mother made her plea.
Is It Fair?
“As a concerned parent,” Ms. Copeland wrote, “I would urge you to review your affiliation with this lawyer and this law firm, and decide if it’s fair or legal to the children in your district or the families who undergo this invasive and dishonest strategy. It amounts to the legal definition of harassment.”
Ms. Copeland asserted that in cases involving special education students, Mr. Fulfrost is a specialist “at wearing down the parents, keeping the proceedings going to exhaust the parents’ resources so that his side does not have to acquiesce to the parents. It’s about wearing the parents down so that they will scuttle off with their tails between their legs without getting what they need for their child.”
The Mastermind?
Drawing on the court record that she attached to the Cote letter, Ms. Copeland urged the superintendent, less than four months on the job, to ponder all details in the case.
“Please take careful note,” she wrote, “that Mr. Fulfrost is identified as the early mastermind of the activities of his junior lawyers, and that he was materially involved in the case long into when the lying began.
“Other school districts,” the mother wrote, “ended their relationship with Mr. Fulfrost when this decision occurred, and that was the right thing to do for (their) students.”
Training in Ethics
Ms. Copeland claims that she has become a victim. “I find myself and my child on the receiving end of Mr. Fulfrost’s incredible hubris, intentional lying and professional misconduct as I enter the year of my child’s transition into kindergarten. It has become 100% clear to me that the ethics training the judge ordered Mr. Fulfrost and his firm to undergo, and the financial penalty suffered by the firm, (have) done nothing to curtail the unethical behavior of lawyers now working for your district and being paid with taxpayer dollars.”
Lawyer Fees
Near the end of her two-page letter, Ms. Copeland addressed one of her most compelling motivations.
In the last two published annual budgets, she told the Superintendent, there was no mention of the fees paid by the School District to Mr. Fulfrost, his old firm and his new firm.
How Close Are They?
Ms. Copeland asked for an accounting of “how much of your Special Education expenditure goes to Mr. Fulfrost and how much goes to therapy for the children.” She suggested the legal fees probably “approach or exceed” the cost of “therapeutic intervention for disabled children.”
In correspondence from the School District that arrived yesterday, a skeptical Ms. Copeland was told Mr. Fulfrost’s firm was paid $85,000 in ’05 and just under $80,000 last year.
The Letter — Yes or No?
Meanwhile, Ms. Copeland continues to insist that Ms. Cote has not replied to her letter of last month. Just as emphatically, the superintendent told the newspaper she has answered, adding that she could not yet publicly disclose the contents.
Ms. Copeland can be contacted at amandafcopeland@yahoo.com.
