For Igor Raykin, practicing education law is a daily, direct confrontation with systemic failure. A founding partner of Colorado Law Team, Raykin dedicates about 80 percent of his caseload to advocating for students with special needs.
“This is not the kind of work where you do it out of love,” he said. “I do it out of my anger at the injustice that these kids have to endure. Because I don’t think we really care as much about kids in the United States as we claim to, and I especially think that we don’t care much about special needs kids.”
A former teacher in a juvenile prison who also helped launch a Denver school for unhoused youth, Raykin graduated from law school in 2000 but delayed entering private practice until 2012. Deciding his forthright personality was ill-suited for school administration, he determined to become a fierce legal advocate for families navigating the education system.
Raykin frequently confronts school districts resisting what he describes as reasonable requests, such as allowing a private nurse paid for by Medicaid to accompany an immunocompromised student to the classroom. His practice also extends into higher education, where he represents disabled college students and military veterans.
Special education law is a notoriously uphill battle, particularly within a federal circuit that has been hostile to special education claims, and following federal precedents like Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller that eliminated emotional distress damages, he said.
“The only way that we have been effective is through constant fighting, constant litigation. Essentially, it is so expensive for them to defend against these cases that, oftentimes, they give us what we’re looking for.”
He continued, “I have lost plenty of cases, but I’ve never lost a battle of the wills. I’m a very stubborn, difficult individual who will do things that make no financial or business sense just because a case pisses me off.”
Raykin’s uncompromising methodology recently culminated in a landmark due process victory for a nine-year-old child with 24 documented medical disabilities. After the school district denied the family’s request for three hours of weekly home-based educational services, Raykin took the case to trial, won, and subsequently mounted a federal discrimination lawsuit. The matter settled under highly favorable terms, securing private home services for the student and recovery of attorney fees for the parents.
While Raykin said the emotional toll of the work has him eyeing a retirement filled with music, travel and cooking, he continues to leverage his other practice, focused on personal injury, to fund education cases with slim odds, ensuring families have someone on their side to the end.