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Lawrence Kotin graduated from Columbia College in 1962 and Columbia University School of Law in 1966. He was admitted to the New York Bar in 1966; Maryland in 1967; and Massachusetts in 1969. Mr. Kotin concentrates his practice in the areas of education and special education law. As a Principal Investigator for the Massachusetts Study of Educational Opportunities for Handicapped and Disadvantaged Children (1971)and then as a Special Assistant for Education and Children's Services to Governor Francis Sargent, he drafted much of the Massachusetts special education legislation (Chapter 766 of the Acts of 1972) with Robert Crabtree, and was instrumental in its passage. He later drafted the regulations for that statute and consulted to the Massachusetts Department of Education in the first years of the law's implementation. He also consulted to the federal government concerning the Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, modeled after Chapter 766. Mr. Kotin has also held various posts in the not-for-profit sector, including Executive Director of Cambridge and Somerville Legal Services and Co-Director of the Massachusetts Center for Public Interest Law, Inc. In addition, he served as President of the Boston Education Alliance and as a board member of the Child Care Resource Center, the Harvard Square Defense Fund, the New School of Music, and the Shady Hill School. He taught as an Adjunct Professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study of Tufts University for a number of years. He has written and lectured widely, including co-authoring with Mr. Crabtree, Special Education: Past, Present and Future, Boston Bar Journal, March/April 1993 and A Handbook on Legal Rights of Disabled People in Massachusetts, Federation for Children with Special Needs, 1987. He also co-authored with William F. Aikman, Esquire, Legal Foundations of Compulsory School Attendance, National University Publications, 1980 and with Mr. Aikman and Mr. Crabtree, the Legal Handbook for Day Care Centers, funded and published by the Ford Foundation and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In February, 2005, after twenty-five years of service, he retired from the board of the Massachusetts Advocates for Children (formerly the Massachusetts Advocacy Center), and received special citation for his "effective advocacy on behalf of children" and his "distinguished tenure on the board of directors." In May 2005, Mr. Kotin was a co-recipient, with Mr. Crabtree, of the Martha Ziegler Founder's Award given by the Federation for Children with Special Needs, recognizing their part in the origins of Chapter 766 and their "decades of dedication to students with disabilities and their families." | 