Thomas E. Kennedy III |
Deborah Greider |
Amy Sanders
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 Tom Kennedy is an attorney in private practice with offices in
Alton, Illinois, located immediately next door to IMPACT, Inc.,
a center for independent living. He has been selected by his
peers as a member of the Leading Lawyers Network and as a “Top
Lawyer” in civil rights and constitutional law, school law,
elder law, and Social Security Disability law. Tom concentrates
on civil litigation, especially school law, disability rights,
elder law, Fair Housing, and other civil rights laws in both
Illinois and Missouri. Much of his work concerns persons with
disabilities, their families, and organizations which support
such persons.
Tom represents numerous nonprofit organizations. Representative
clients include Marc, a nonprofit in Bloomington, Illinois,
which provides residential and day program services to
developmentally disabled children and adults; The Children’s
Center, a nonprofit in Danville, Illinois, which provides
counseling and related services to troubled children and
families; ARC/CSS, a nonprofit in Effingham, Illinois which
provides services to children and adults with developmental
disabilities and their families; IMPACT, Inc., an independent
living center in Alton, Illinois which assists persons with
disabilities to live as independently as possible; Developmental
Disability Services of Metro East, Inc., a screening and
assessment agency for adults with developmental disabilities;
The St. Louis Empowerment Center, a drop-in center for adults
with chronic mental illness; and, MOCIL, the Missouri statewide
association of independent living centers.
Tom is a 1971 graduate of the University of Illinois College Of
Law, where he received the Outstanding Senior Award, an award
for public service voted by the faculty. He obtained his
undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University in Middletown,
Connecticut.
Before entering private practice, Tom was employed by Land of
Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, Inc., where he led Land of
Lincoln’s task force on disability rights law and directed a
statewide program to provide legal assistance in special
education matters to children who are wards of the Illinois
Department of Children and Family Services. Tom was formerly
the Deputy Director of the Illinois Developmental Disabilities
Law Project, an administrator for the Illinois Department of
Mental Health, and a caseworker for the New York City Department
of Social Services.
Tom is a graduate of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.
He has received many awards in his career, including the
Illinois Lawyers Trust Fund’s first award for public interest
law and the Clarence Darrow Public Interest Advocate Award from
the Public Interest Law Group of St. Louis University School of
Law. He has also received the Smithson Advocacy Award from the
Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities in Illinois, the 2003
Open Door Award from the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing
Opportunity Council, the 2004 Volunteer Lawyer Award from Legal
Services of Eastern Missouri, and was recently recognized by the
Midwest Foster Care Adoption Coalition for advocacy on behalf of
Missouri children.
Tom wrote “Current Developments in School and Education Law,”
and “New Standards and Decisions in School and Education Law,”
published by Lorman Education Services, “The Americans with
Disabilities Act: A White Paper,” funded by a grant from the
Illinois Planning Council on Developmental Disabilities, and a
chapter on “School Law,” in Representing the
Low Income Client, published by the Illinois
Institute of Continuing Legal Education.
Tom is an adjunct professor at Saint Louis University School of
Law and has served as a consultant to the Rehabilitation
Institute of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He is
a national presenter on vocational rehabilitation due process
hearing procedures.
Tom is an active member of the National Organization of Social
Security Claims Representatives (NOSSCR) and the Council of
Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA). He has served on the
Civil Justice Reform Act Advisory Committee of the U.S. District
Court for the Southern District of Illinois.
Tom is admitted in Illinois and Missouri and to the U.S.
District Courts for the Southern and Central Districts of
Illinois, the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri, and the
U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Seventh and Eighth Circuits.
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 Deborah Greider, a graduate of
the University of Illinois College of Law, is licensed to
practice in Illinois and Missouri. Before law school, Deborah
attended graduate school in linguistics at the University of
Illinois, and she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English,
with honors, from the State University of New York at Stony
Brook.
She was judicial law clerk to the
Hon. Harlington Wood, Jr. (7th Circuit Court of
Appeals, now retired) and the late Hon. J. Waldo Ackerman (U.S.
District Court, Central District of Illinois). Deborah was an
associate in The Lakin Law Firm, leaving to later become Senior
Counsel to Mercantile Bank and Mercantile Bancorporation where
she worked for nine years. Following this, for two years she
served as attorney for bankruptcy trustees Stuart Radloff and
Charles Riske, and she represented many clients in commercial
law and financial industries matters. She has been retained by
a number of attorneys, law firms, and corporations to advise in
special matters, including multidistrict litigation and class
certification issues.
Her practice now focuses on
disabilities issues, civil rights, accident litigation,
guardianship and adoption, and the representation of
not-for-profit corporations and other businesses and agencies.
For several years Deborah has
been an adjunct professor of law at Saint Louis University
School of Law, and she has lectured widely to professional and
industry groups on topics including Fair Housing, Social
Security Disability and SSI, end-of-life planning, employment
law, school law, financial regulations, and corporate governance
issues.
She received a scholarship from
the American Trial Lawyers Association and successfully
completed its Advanced Advocacy College at the University of
Nevada.
She is a member of the National
Organization of Social Security Claims Representatives. She has
completed the Missouri Supreme Court sponsored intervention
training, designed to assist persons with mental health or
addiction problems. Deborah has been recognized for her service
to the poor by Legal Services of Eastern Missouri and received
its Volunteer Lawyer Award for 2004. In 2005, she was
recognized by the Midwest Foster Care Adoption Coalition for her
outstanding advocacy on behalf of Missouri’s children.
Deborah was an editor and
technical writer for the Center for Advanced Computation at the
University of Illinois, for the University of Illinois Press,
and for The Quarterly Review of Biology published by the
Stony Brook Foundation and the University of Chicago Press.
She serves on several civic and
professional committees and boards.
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 Amy
Sanders practices family law (dissolution and custody matters,
guardianships, adoptions, and adoption subsidy hearings),
engages in civil litigation, and the represents clients before
administrative agencies in matters involving disabilities
rights, entitlement issues, civil rights, and Social Security
Disability and SSI claims.
Amy is a graduate of Saint Louis
University School of Law, licensed to practice law in Missouri,
and has a B.A. in English Literature from Loyola University
Chicago.
Before joining the firm, Amy was
Assistant Clinical Professor of Law at Saint Louis University,
where she focused on family law, disabilities issues, and civil
rights litigation. In addition, she taught civil advocacy and
supervised law students who were performing client services in
court and before administrative tribunals.
From 2003-2005, Amy was the
Godfrey P. Padberg Equal Justice Fellow for Catholic Legal
Assistance Ministry. In 2003, she received the Extraordinary
Service Award from St. Louis City CASA (now, Voices for
Children). Upon graduating from law school, Amy received the
David Grant Clinic Student Award and the School of Law Public
Service Award. During law school Amy twice received the Herbert
A. Eastman Public Interest Fellowship. Also during law school
she served as Public Relations Chair and, later, as President of
the Women Law Students’ Association. She has been a member of
the Leadership Council, the School of Law Public Interest Law
Group, and Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity.
She has been a speaker at
seminars and trainings, including the Guardian ad Litem
Training for CASA, the 14th National Child Abuse and
Neglect Conference, and a continuing legal education program on
orders of protection.
Amy belongs to the Missouri Bar,
the American Bar Association, and the Bar Association of
Metropolitan St. Louis (where she serves as co-chair of a youth
literacy initiative).
She volunteers her time to the
Family Support Committee of Habitat for Humanity St. Louis and
to Voices for Children. She has been featured in articles
appearing in Cor Jesu Academy’s Spirit, a publication for
alumnae, and in the St. Louis Bar Journal, “President’s
Column.” |
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