Michael Zatopa and Ellen Stephens have been representing families of special needs children and adults and the organizations that serve them for over 40 years combined. We have created this website to provide you with information and resources to help you better understand the law and procedures that affect special needs children. We invite you to explore the many useful areas of our site to help you assess the options available to you.

While we have provided most of our legal services to families on an individual basis, we have now instituted a Pre-Paid Group Legal Services plan that can provide organizations and groups of parents pre-paid legal counseling at a far lower cost than individual representation. It is our hope to provide families with legal advice on their case in a group format that allows them to navigate the special education process at their local public school with direct legal advice at each juncture in the process, but in an affordable manner.

Our fundamental goal in creating this web site is to help you navigate the process, and understand where, why and when legal assistance may be appropriate and efficient, and further, how to make it cost-effective. We invite your comments and recommend you use our email addresses in the contact us section.

Review a description of our Group Legal Services plan and see if your organization or parent group can access legal advice at a low cost.
Click here for more


Submit information to our firm for an initial review of your case.
Click here for more


Prior cases handled by this firm, and their outcomes.
Click here for more


Links to private and public organizations relevant to our client.
Click here for more