The nationwide nonprofit Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA) has announced today its 2025 award winners, and Reisman Gran Zuba LLP’s own Catherine Merino Reisman has been honored with the Diane Lipton Award for Outstanding Advocacy. As 2025’s honoree, Catherine joins an impressive line of legal trailblazers, including RGZ Partner Judith A. Gran (2008 Lipton Award winner), recognized by COPAA for their remarkable impact while balancing their ground-breaking litigation with hands-on, personal client advice, support, and concern that goes far beyond the call of duty.
Diane Lipton was a powerhouse parent and attorney who used every tool at hand to compel school districts to abide by the letter and the spirit of the laws requiring students with disabilities to be educated in the least restrictive environment, including successfully lobbying the federal government to withhold funds until her state was in compliance. About Diane, Senator Edward Kennedy, (D-Mass.), said following her untimely passing, “We have lost one of our heroes, a woman who fought valiantly not only for her own child with cerebral palsy, but for all children across the nation.”
Catherine’s work on over 60 federal appeals across the country, many resulting in landmark rulings, and her leadership in two massive class actions on behalf of parents of children with disabilities, has reverberated across the country and through the special education community, cementing her legacy as an advocate worthy of this honor in Diane Lipton’s name. Individually, her empathy, patience, wit, insight, collaboration, and tireless dedication has captured the admiration, appreciation, friendship, and respect of parents, professionals, and attorneys on both sides of the aisle (and the IEP table).
Please visit COPAA’s website to learn more about Catherine’s ongoing advocacy for students with disabilities and their parents, along with COPAA’s other 2025 award winner: https://www.copaa.org/page/2025_Awards.