Cirkiel & Associates PC

We worked with advocate David Beinke over the past year after having some problems with my daughter’s school refusing to provide appropriate services to my SpEd daughter. David offered sound advice throughout the year, attending ARD meetings with us and guiding us on through the process of mediation. I encourage all special needs parents to advocate for their child. The help of a paid advocate like David was invaluable.

My husband and I worked with David Beinke, Nancy Flores, and Daniel Garza. From our first interaction with Cirkiel, we found them to be professional and with a keen understanding of the special education landscape in Texas and nationally, as well as deep compassion for students and their families. David was an endless resource of information (and humor!), and Nancy understood deeply the very complicated issues surrounding our child's case. Together, David, Nancy, and Daniel shepherded us through the beginnings of a very tense due process and mediation, ultimately getting us what our son needed to stay in school. After having gone it alone for a year in Texas, I am quite sure that our child would have been forced to leave the school or would have been in danger had he stayed the second year, without the advocacy of our team at Cirkiel. We are now homeschooling, but if we ever return to public school in Texas, Cirkiel will be on fast dial.

We were directed to this firm by a good attorney friend of mine. We had been trudging through SPED ARD’s and various issues with our daughters’ school for a year with no results at all. She has ASD, Dyslexia, SPD, ADDHD and Dysgraphia diagnosis. We had her in separate outside ABA therapy that was working wonders and all we simply wanted was an even playing field with her peers. We didn’t care to get belligerent or demanding of any services that wouldn’t benefit her as it would truly only detract from other children that needed them. After hitting one brick wall after the next and knowing full well that we weren’t asking for services that were beyond her need we finally reached out for an advocate. We were given Nancy Flores in January 2020. We had our initial phone meeting where although I was flustered with the events that lead to where we were, I was clear about what we wanted to see come of obtaining an advocate. Nancy gave me some very firm ground rules to begin with to deal with the school. Then the pandemic hit. Knowing that the pandemic didn’t end school but rather moved it to a different and now more challenging platform we pushed through. Our daughter excelled more in that 9-week period of stay at home schooling than she had the entire year which gave us the proof that we needed to show the school that teaching her the way that we were positive would work was wholly possible and productive! We are very involved parents and wanted to take the reins until we felt like it would no longer serve to assist but hinder our daughter. Nancy was there for every question and even to give us the proper nudge when it was time to file for mediation with the district, which is when she took the reins. Although we cannot discuss the details of the outcome of the mediation, I can say that both Nancy and the Assigned Attorney with the firm said that it was probably the best outcome that they have ever seen. We have been VERY pleased with where our daughter is now, she is happy, confident and succeeding educationally. We sincerely don’t think we could have done this on our own. It’s a very long and tough road but if you have the ability, I would most certainly recommend hiring her for your advocacy needs. She is very knowledgeable and has absolutely no fear or gives pause to speaking up for your child. She can and will see subtle nuances that districts put forth in a way to legally muddy waters to protect themselves and call them out on it immediately.

My workplace started a legal plan and I decided to get my will and other medical power of attorneys done. Looked at the plan and this place was listed as one of the participating legal participants. Talked with Steve there and he sent me out the forms to fill out stating what we wished. He did up the paperwork based on those forms and sent those back to us to review. We then went in for a meeting with him and went over what the wills and power of attorney said and everything was correct. They witnessed and notarized everything and gave us the will and other paperwork and we were on our way in less than 45 minutes. Excellent work and a short amount of time and through our legal plan that was fairly inexpensive.

Marty took my daughters case when no one else would. Fought it all the way to the full 5th circuit. Along the way he was consistently: 1. attentive and sensitive to the legal needs of the case, including all deadlines, court timelines, and our own numerous requests to understand what was going on and why it matters 2. detailed and correct in all legal filings; something that matters a lot when you go on appeal and you may not realize how important it is 3. upfront and honest about expenses to litigate, and our chances of winning a case when the law favors schools so heavily (they can basically do whatever they want to your kid and have few legal consequences) In the end, AISD misled the court (some might say they lied) and got the case dismissed due to the structural problems in our legal system related to protecting kids from predators and school officials being protected by law when they hurt kids. However, Marty fought for our daughter when no one else would, including her school district. Our experience was eye-opening about how the courts protect school administrators and predators. When all was said and done, I showed our court briefings to a friend who is a former deputy Solicitor General of the United States and after looking at Marty's work told me that it was some of the best he'd seen for a hopeless case like ours. Bottom line, if your kid is harassed at school and they don't care, Marty will care. The law and courts may be stacked against you because of our screwed up system. You may not win, but AISD knows he's a pit bull for your kids, and he'll do everything possible to make them pay attention and solve the problem. Marty is the lawyer you need.