Lawrence Kotin is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia University School of Law and a member of the bars of New York, Maryland, and Massachusetts.

Mr. Kotin has been involved in the area of special-education law since 1969, when he was funded to write a legal and policy analysis of the existing special-education system in Massachusetts and to develop model legislation for the reform of that sys tem. With his continued participation (as Special Assistant on Education and Children's Services to Governor Francis Sargent) and that of Robert K. Crabtree, one of his current partners (as Research Director for the Massachusetts Legislature's Joint Commi ttee on Education), the key provisions of that proposed legislation were filed by the legislative leadership in 1972. The legislation was further developed by the Education Committee with the involvement of many special-education professionals and advocac y organizations, and eventually was enacted as Chapter 766 of the Acts of 1972. Subsequently, Mr. Kotin was hired by the Department of Education to draft the regulations for Chapter 766 and to advise the Department during the first year of implementation. Later, he was a legal and policy consultant to the United States Office of Special Education (then Bureau of Education for the Handicapped) on a wide variety of legal and policy issues. He was also a part-time faculty member of the Eliot Pearson Departme nt of Child Study of Tufts University for seven years, teaching two courses on law and children.

Most recently Mr. Kotin has been in full-time private practice in Boston with the law firm of Kotin, Crabtree & Strong, a general-practice firm, where he concentrates in the areas of special education, disability law, family law, and the law of n onprofit organizations.