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Staff are seeing this for the second time, but I wanted to also share on the blog. 

Here is the quote: 

A bone-marrow transplant -- the first paid by the reluctant agency controlling Utah Medicaid funds after Utah Legal Services took it to court -- saved her life.

And if you are interested in the rest of the article, here is the link:

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_15227681?IADID=Search-www.sltrib.com-www.sltrib.com

Thanks Jazmin and Mary for spotting this article and passing it on. 

Anne Milne, a Utah Legal Services (ULS) employee since 1977 and Executive Director since 1985, was honored at a recent fundraising breakfast for her leadership and dedication to the agency.  Anne received a leadership award in the form of an engraved crystal vase presented by her staff, and an award for special services from the Utah State Bar presented by Bar President Stephen Owens.   ULS is the statewide Legal Services Corporation funded provider of legal services to the poor in Utah.

The ULS award recognized Anne’s “leadership and dedication to ULS since 1977.”  The award from the Utah State Bar was given “in recognition of your 25 years of leadership at Utah Legal Services, your creativity in stretching limited resources and your devotion to serving the legal needs of everyone.”

 The awards were presented at the ”Justice Rising” fundraising breakfast held annually by And Justice For All. (AJFA)  AJFA is the collaborative fund raising effort of ULS, the Legal Aid Society of Salt Lake County and the Disability Law Center, the three primary providers of civil legal aid in Utah.  AJFA started as a joint private bar campaign more than a decade ago, ran a capital campaign for a building in Salt Lake where the main offices of all three agencies are now co-located, and has expanded to fund-raising from the business community through the annual breakfast.  Proceeds from AJFA are divided between the three main agencies, and smaller grants are also made to other providers such as Catholic Community Services and DNA People’s Legal Services on the Navajo Reservation.

This year’s Justice Rising breakfast was attended by over 400 supporters, including Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Christine Durham, Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon and Lieutenant Governor Greg Bell.   In addition to the usual breakfast sponsors, staff set out this year to raise an extra $25,000 in challenge grants in recognition of Anne’s 25 years as Director.  That amount was exceeded and once all the pledges and donations were in over $105,000 was raised through the breakfast.  An astounding accomplishment given the economy, a testament to the support Anne has garnered for ULS and AJFA in the community, and a reflection on how everyone in the community wanted to honor Anne’s service. 

Click here to watch a 5 minute portion of the award presentation by Fraser Nelson, former Director of the Disability Law Center, and one of the co-founders of AJFA. 

Eric Mittelstadt, a Deputy Director at ULS commented that “Anne deflects all praise to the former and current staff she’s worked with, and to our great partner agencies and supporters in the community, but we are the ones fortunate to have worked with her.  Some say that we make sacrifices to work in legal services, but Anne makes it easy to see and remember day by day, through her leadership and her example, that we are in fact privileged to do the work we do, and serve the people we serve.”

*Thanks go to Sarah Hodge for making what she could of our video content from the breakfast.

Here are some notes from the Board meeting on July 27th, and our First Tuesday update on August 3rd.

At the Board meeting, as always, the Board received a financial update (we came out of the fiscal year in good shape, but as we all know by now the end of the DOJ grant means we'll start dipping into the reserves we've built up,) and a report from Anne (this month covering guidelines for preventing fraud coming out of LSC, and our loss of three staff people, more on that below.)

The staff presentation this month was from Marty and Ken who gave an overview of the work we are doing in the landlord/tenant area.  Marty then presented on research he has done into what services we might take on in the area of foreclosures.  Marty has been researching what services are available in Utah, and where the funding for those services comes from.  The Board looks at priorities during their November meeting and will consider any changes at that time. 

Finally, some new client eligible board members are being vetted, Howard Lundgren will assume the presidency of the Board at the next meeting, taking that chair over after three years of service from Thom Roberts, and a Vice President (who is President-elect) will be elected. 

That next meeting is a retreat planned for September 28 from 5:00 to 7:00pm.  Staff will be involved, so if you are interested in participating please let Eric know. 

On our First Tuesday call we thanked both Brenda and Patti for their excellent service and wished them well.  The hiring process for their positions, as well as the staff attorney position in St. George is well underway and we have many, many applicants. 

Our funding update pointed out that there is talk of a small increase in LSC funding, but that good news is again offset by the end of the DOJ grant, the low interest rates affecting our Bar Foundation funding and changes coming in United Way of Salt Lake that don't look positive for us.  (Anne and Eric have been involved in the "change process" at United Way, which so far just means we can tell you first-hand it doesn't look good.)  For the immediate future however, we have built up reserves again and are carefully tracking spending as we move forward.  We'll also be applying for the DOJ funding again and should know by Fall of 2011 if we are successful. 

Finally, a reminder that evaluations are taking place over the coming month, and there will be merit compensation attached this year, likely in the same reduced range as the $200/$500 that was used last year.

And that's what you missed.  If you have any comments, questions or concerns, please let Eric know.

It’s annual evaluation time at ULS.  Each year our management team gets together to discuss the performance of task forces, offices and individuals.  The result is written feedback to staff, (coming in the next couple of weeks) as well as the identification of ways we can improve services to clients.

On the individual side, staff are rated in three categories.  If a staff person is rated “needs improvement” they don’t receive merit compensation.  If the rating is “meeting expectations”, this year the staff person receives $250.00.  If the rating is “exceeding expectations” the merit compensation is $500.00.  Everyone is given some feedback for improvements, but here are some excerpts from those exceeding expectations that tell you why they are being recognized this year.   

Jazmin Torres from our intake unit:  Jazmin really enjoys her job at ULS and it shows.  She is always enthusiastic about her work and brings a positive atmosphere to the office.  She is also willing to re-arrange her schedule to accommodate other’s needs and to take on new assignments.  She is consistently to work on time and stays focused throughout the day.  She also is very courteous to callers. She never complains about difficult clients or other issues that happen.  In all, she has shown her dedication and willingness to focus on client's needs and accomplish the goals of Utah Legal Services.  These efforts are greatly appreciated and worthy of recognition.

We are also delighted to recognize Sue Crisler, public benefits paralegal from the Ogden office.   She’s  earned it.  Our Social Security clients benefited greatly from her dedicated advocacy and commitment to their needs.  Sue goes above and beyond in her willingness to help in all areas of office activity.   Her efforts to secure benefits on behalf of clients prior to hearing are a leading example to the task force.  Sue’s ability to keep an enormous Pub Bens caseload organized and ready for hearings is the single most important reason the Ogden office is able to effectively represent clients and accounts for their high rate of success.   Congratulations on an outstanding year! 

Also recognized this year is Cynthia Mendenhall.  Cynthia transitioned from Ogden to Salt Lake and now to the St. George office this year, making a positive difference at each step.  In addition to her top notch assistance to clients, Cynthia took on the review of best practice standards for the task force this year.  This review of time lines and time tables in all of our domestic cases is the first step in assuring we meet important benchmarks for those clients.  Cynthia managed to take on this work, organize a new caseload in St. George and volunteer to take on the public benefits caseload from Southwest Utah as well.  She’s always looking for a new challenge, and we were pleased to deliver several of them to Cynthia this year. 

Out of the Provo office, we recognize the energy and enthusiasm of Caitlin Bradley.  Caitlin jumped whole-heartedly into a demanding caseload and has become very knowledgeable in a short period of time.  She is sharp as a tack and brings all of her considerable talents to bear for every client she comes into contact with.  She isn’t afraid of thinking outside the box, or knocking holes in the box if it means a better outcome for clients.  Thanks Caitlin, for all of your efforts.

Lori Johnson is our nose to the grindstone, work work work and barely come up for air public benefits paralegal in Salt Lake.  Handling all facets of a very large caseload, Lori is the ultimate, hard working, just get it done public benefits advocate.   She’s also increased her participation in task force activities this year, sharing valuable input and insights.  Her work ethic is worthy of respect and admiration.  Please keep it up Lori.

Alex McBean from our farm worker unit took on a case, in a corner of employment and immigration law we’ve never handled, for over 100 clients, who all had three or more separate cases, who spoke almost no English, but who badly needed assistance.   It would have been the easiest situation in the world to walk away from, but Alex jumped in with both feet instead.  Just that fact alone is worthy of this recognition, but to top it, Alex was successful in getting the Thai trafficking victims T-Visas  and other relief, and now some of those people responsible have been indicted in federal court.  Well done Alex. 

From management this year, we recognize Mike Bulson.   Mike experienced a kind of rebirth as he dove into a new area, consumer law, while at the same time continuing to watch over and lead our public benefits work statewide.  Mike has become a valuable resource in the community as a consumer advocate and maintains his status as the statewide expert on all public benefits matters.  He even still deals with the contracts and reports in that area, keeping our funders happy, and our clients happier.  Many thanks to Mike. 

And thanks to all our staff for your hard work and dedication.  If there is something you need from SSU that will help you better serve clients, please let us know.