Dee Alpert, a lawyer who spent her professional life as a special education advocate, died of a brain aneurysm this weekend at the age of 65, reports the Wall Street Journal. Alpert had dedicated her career to helping special education students in the New York City public school system.

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She was considered something of an unofficial inspector general, since she had a rare grasp of the “arcana of school regulations, audits and budget.” She used this knowledge in assisting parents and advocates, often for no charge.

Over the course of her investigations, she uncovered a discrepancy in handling abuse allegations, which depended on whether a victim was a special education student. In one of her most controversial exposes, titled “Abu Ghraib on the Hudson” Alpert broke down the proposed state regulation and uncovered a clause that would allow schools to lock up students with disabilities in a “seclusion room.”