2021 Annual Conference: Awards

Mary Ellen Hamilton Award - LaDonna Sims

LaDonna Sims is a motivational speaker who shares life skills with traditional high school students. She is an advocate for the issues of our youth, women, and the elderly. She enjoys presenting and educating on topics as well as issues concerning equal rights and financial and educational disparities. Education is her passion.

She represents her community through participation with organizations that share a common vision and goals. Some of which include equality, access to affordable healthcare, voter rights as well as political action.

LaDonna has participated in her local Citizens Academy through the mayor’s office, where she was able to increase her knowledge of city government. The tools and information gained through this program assist her in the ability to be an information resource for her neighborhood, nonprofit organizations, and local businesses.

She is a current and active executive board member of the Asa Philip Randolph Institute, Fort Wayne Chapter, where she holds multiple positions. She chairs the scholarship program which the chapter has sponsored through business and community donations since 2010.

She is also a board member of the Indiana Legal Services, Inc., serving as 1st Vice President. Her service on the board continues to be a rewarding and educational experience.

LaDonna has had the honor of recognition by her colleagues and community leaders for her tireless efforts in promoting the importance of education in every aspect of a person’s life.
LaDonna states, “As a young child, it was impressed upon me the importance of family and being true to oneself. To help those who can’t or have the inability to help themselves. To always know you can do whatever you truly chose to do. To know you are no better than anyone, nor is anyone better than you. Struggles are life lessons that can prepare you for the next obstacle.”
She believes education and knowledge to be critical as well as imperative for economic prosperity and fairness.

LaDonna is a widowed mother of four adult children and five beautiful grandchildren. She loves family, jazz and the beauty of the outdoors.

She holds a professional license in cosmetology and many credits in employment and labor law.

“Education is the passport to the FUTURE, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it TODAY”-Malcolm X

New Leaders in Advocacy Award - Julia Simon-Mishel

Julia is the supervising attorney of the Unemployment Compensation Unit at Philadelphia Legal Assistance (PLA), where she represents low-wage workers in unemployment matters. She has represented more than 800 clients and has an active appellate practice pursuing impact unemployment cases in Pennsylvania courts. Julia has won two cases in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court: Harmon v. UCBR, a statutory construction case that expanded the right to benefits for returning citizens; and Lowman v. UCBR, a groundbreaking case holding that an UberX driver worked in “employment” and was entitled to unemployment benefits. She also works closely with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry on system improvements and has testified by invitation before the Pennsylvania legislature many times on issues affecting her clients.

Julia’s research and advocacy focuses on how technology can improve access to benefits and how to prevent harmful uses of automated decision-making in benefit programs. She was the co-principal investigator and author of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded report “Centering Workers - How to Modernize Unemployment Insurance Technology,” and serves by appointment on Pennsylvania’s Unemployment Compensation Benefit Modernization Advisory Committee.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Julia has spearheaded community outreach and education about unemployment programs in Pennsylvania, working closely with social service organizations, community groups, legal services organizations, and local officials to help tens of thousands of workers access benefits. She is frequently cited in media outlets across the country, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, NPR, Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg News. Recently, Julia launched a statewide unemployment resource and self-help website, www.UCHelp.org.

Before joining PLA, Julia clerked for the Honorable Norma L. Shapiro of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Julia has been named one of the American Bar Association’s “On the Rise: Top 40 Young Lawyers” and a Super Lawyers “Rising Star” in Pennsylvania. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Brandeis University.
 

Charles Dorsey Award - Barton “Bart” F. Stichman

Barton F. Stichman serves as special counsel to the National Veterans Legal Services Program (NVLSP), a nonprofit law firm dedicated to ensuring that veterans and their families receive the government benefits they have earned through their military service. Mr. Stichman helped found NVLSP in 1981, and served as its executive director or co-executive director from its founding to July 2021.

After earning degrees from New York University School of Law (J.D. 1974) and Georgetown University Law Center (L.L.M 1975), Mr. Stichman devoted his 46-year legal professional career to representing veterans and their families before U.S. district courts and courts of appeals, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the U.S. Court of the Department of Veterans Affairs, military department discharge review boards, and boards for correction of military records. His litigation efforts in class actions have resulted in payment of more than $5.2 billion dollars in federal disability, death, and health care benefits to hundreds of thousands of disabled veterans and their families.

A major part of NVLSP’s mission has been to increase the pool of effective advocates available to represent veterans and their family members through training and educational publications on veterans benefits law. Over his career, Mr. Stichman has trained thousands of lawyers and non-lawyers in this area of law. He is also a co-editor of The Veterans Benefits Manual, NVLSP’s 2200-page treatise on veterans benefits law that is published annually by Lexis Law Publishing and distributed to thousands of veterans advocates.

On behalf of NVLSP, Bart worked with The American Legion, the Disabled American Veterans and the Paralyzed Veterans of America to organize and successfully earn a grant from the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) in 1992 for the four-organization consortium to operate a pro bono program to recruit and train volunteer attorneys to represent pro se veterans before the newly created CAVC. The grant from LSC to the Consortium is now in its 29th year and has provided volunteer attorneys to thousands of pro se veterans.

Mr. Stichman co-authored Not Reasonably Debatable: The Problems with Single-Judge Decisions by the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, 27 STANFORD LAW & POLICY REVIEW 1 (2016); The Rights of Military Personnel, and NVLSP’s Military Discharge Upgrade Manual. Mr. Stichman has written articles on veterans benefits law appearing in the Administrative Law Review, The American University Law Review, The Federal Bar News and Journal, Clearinghouse Review, and the Legal Times.

Mr. Stichman is a member of the Judicial Advisory Committee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, and is a past president of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims Bar Association.

Clara Shortridge Foltz Award - West Virginia Public Defender Services

Substance use issues and associated overdoses have plagued West Virginia and the intersection of substance use and criminal legal involvement has only been heightened for indigent defense clients. Initially through grant proposal writing efforts by the criminal justice specialist for the Public Defender Corporation Resource Center of West Virginia Public Defender Services, the Public Defender Corporation Recovery Coach Project was born. The Public Defender Corporation Recovery Coach Project developed in response to the unmet substance use treatment needs of indigent criminal defendants and, through advocacy by West Virginia Public Defender Services, now operates in 15 public defender corporations across 23 counties in the state. The Public Defender Corporation Recovery Coach Project draws on the lived experience of persons in recovery with paraprofessional training. The peer recovery coaches serving the program are employed full-time by and working in public defender corporations with indigent public defender clients. The goal of the recovery coaches is to work collaboratively with the public defenders by receiving client referrals of indigent criminal defendants with substance use disorders who have been arrested and criminally charged. After the recovery coaches assess the needs of the clients, they refer and ensure placement into appropriate substance use treatment so defendants can begin treatment immediately upon their release from incarceration, thereby reducing overdose risk.

West Virginia, while a small state, has a diversity of needs possessed by citizens within its borders. Having peer recovery coaches operating in public defender corporations across judicial circuits in 23 counties means the peer recovery coaches are attuned to the substance use and social issues impacting indigent public defender clients in their specific area. Because the peer recovery coaches work in the public defender corporation in the community they serve, public defender clients can return to the public defender corporation to meet with the peer recovery coach to discuss their ongoing needs, challenges, and successes post-treatment and post-incarceration.

Peer recovery coaches advocate for clients’ needs at regional jails, with community providers, and serve on treatment courts as part of the treatment team. Peer recovery coaches also serve to inform and educate public defenders on the substance use needs and struggles of their clients from a health and recovery perspective because the recovery coaches were able to overcome substance use, work on recovery, and move towards healthier lives themselves. Public defenders benefit from the project by having a specialized non-attorney perspective on the substance use treatment needs of their clients, thereby allowing them to focus more intently on the legal needs of their clients. The clients benefit from the project through linkage with a trained peer resulting in appropriate assessment and referral to substance use treatment as well as follow-up on ongoing substance use and legal needs post-treatment completion. West Virginia Public Defender Services is proud of the Public Defender Corporation Recovery Coach Project because it supports holistic representation in indigent defense, promotes treatment opportunities for defendants, and saves lives.

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