Barbara Goeben is a 1996 graduate from Northwestern Law School where she focused on fair housing and poverty law issues. While an undergraduate at Washington D.C., Ms. Goeben interned at C.N.N. and Amnesty International. Upon graduation from law school, she worked at Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, Inc. with a specialty on consumer and housing issues. While at Land of Lincoln, she helped established the consumer information desk at the Madison County Small Claims Court docket and a program to do direct legal outreach at
Diane M. Goffinet is a senior supervisory attorney at Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, Inc. in the Southern Regional office. She deals primary with health and welfare issues, but also works in family law, consumer and estate law as well. From 1992-1994 she was a judicial clerk to US District Court Judge J. Phil Gilbert, during which time she was assigned to his social security appeals docket. She joined Land of Lincoln in 1994, and from the Fall of 1997 through 2007, she served as the Health & Welfare Task Force Coordinator and SSI specialist for Land of Lincoln. She has handled hundreds of Title II and SSI cases at all levels of the
Brandy L. Johnson was born in Carbondale, Illinois is 1976. In 2000, she graduated from Southern Illinois University Carbondale with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a minor in the Administration of Justice. Ms. Johnson received her Juris Doctorate, magna cum laude, from Southern Illinois University School of Law in 2003. She was admitted to practice law in Illinois in 2003 and in Missouri in 2004.
Mrs. Johnson is admitted to practice law in all courts in the states of Missouri and Illinois. She is also admitted to practice before the United States District Court for the Eastern District of
Missouri, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. Ms. Johnson is a member of the Illinois State Bar Association and was appointed a member of the Association’s Standing Committee for Disability Law in 2012. She is a member of the Missouri Bar Association and has been a member of its Workers’ Compensation Commission for several years. Ms. Johnson currently hold the position of Secretary of the Jackson County Bar Association.
Joan Spiegel earned her J.D. at Washington University Law School in 1981. She currently serves as the Managing Attorney for the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, a role she has filled since 1997. Prior to this, Ms. Spiegel was a staff attorney at the Land of Legal
Thomas Yates is General Counsel at Health & Disability Advocates, an advocacy group in Chicago that works to preserve and improve public benefits programs for children, low-income elderly and persons with disabilities.
Mr. Yates has been affiliated with Health & Disability Advocates since 1996. He also has been in practice with Jeffrey Rabin & Associates in Chicago in 1998-99, the Legal Assistance
Foundation of Chicago from 1985 to 1996, and Northeast Kentucky Legal Services in Morehead, Kentucky from 1983 to 1985. His legal practice has focused on Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, and Medicaid issues.
Mr. Yates received the Child Health Advocate Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2005, the Distinguished Service Award from National Organization of Social Security
Claimants’ Representatives in April 2006, the Excellence in Pro Bono Group Service Award from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and the Chicago Chapter of the Federal Bar Association in June 2006, the Trial Lawyer of the Year Finalist Award from the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice in 2006, and the Thomas H. Morsch Public Service Award from the Chicago Bar Foundation in 2013.
