public schools. During the past 40 years, Congress, federal executive agencies and the federal courts have also intervened in the public school system to ensure more equal access of racial, gender and other minorities, including victims of sexual abuse and sexual harassment and the disabled, to the public schools and their services. Increased federal intervention in schools has been influenced by many factors: local fiscal problems, increased crime and violence in the schools and other social changes. Bittle, Helms & Norton (1995) say that "in recent years there has been a dramatic increase of federal presence in local education management. Federal funding to schools has increased; however, that increase has been accompanied by pervasive regulations and mandates for obtaining the money" (p. 897).
One important result of these developments has been an avalanche of constitutional and other civil litigation usually begun by contingent fee lawyers on behalf of students, parents and others which has fundamentally altered the legal framework within which the pub
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