Administrative Hearing Skills

Bruce Allen Scott brings more than 30 years of legal experience to his position as Supervising Paralegal at Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida, Inc. After receiving his Legal Assistant/Paralegal degree at the University of Central Florida in 1978, Bruce began his commitment to legal services as a Consumer Affairs  Assistant through the CETA program at Central Florida Legal Services in 1979. In 1980, he became a Public Benefits Paralegal with Central Florida Legal Services. Most recently, he has been a Supervising Paralegal with Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida, Inc. since 2004 when Central Florida Legal Services, Inc. merged with Greater Orlando Legal Services, Inc and Withlacoochee Area Legal Services to form Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida, Inc. He has also been an advocate in the area of public housing.

Courses Taught

• Administrative Hearing Skills

David Begley began his legal career in 1983 in private practice in Massachusetts. He is a third generation lawyer in his family. He left law in 1993 and began doing social work for various AIDS service organizations. He moved to Florida from Boston in 1996 and began working with the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County in 2000 in their HIV/AIDS Project and has been doing SSA appeals since then.  He passed the Florida Bar in 2003. David handles all aspects of benefits procurement from the initial application through reconsideration, hearing and Appeals Council. He has done hundreds of appeals and has been successful in obtaining well in excess of $1,000,000 in lump sum benefits for clients of Legal Aid Society. He has presented on social security issues at several United States Conference on AIDS (USCA) sponsored by the  National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) and has done numerous trainings and in-services to local organizations and groups on the SSA appeals process. David is also on the Steering Committee for the SOAR (SSI/SSD Outreach, Access and Recovery) Project in Palm Beach County.  SOAR is a model to obtain  social security benefits for the homeless disabled and has a national success rate of 70%. He is currently a candidate to become an ALJ for the Social Security Administration.

Courses Taught

• Administrative Hearing Skills

Jim Breslauer ("Bres") is the Advocacy Coordinator at Neighborhood Legal Services in Lynn and Lawrence Massachusetts. He started his legal   services career in Lancaster Pennsylvania before there were Selectric typewriters or white out. After a break selling high end stereo equipment, he worked for the Pennsylvania Coalition on Food and Nutrition doing statewide food stamp and school breakfast and lunch work. Then Reagan defunded the program. Luckily his wife, Deb Thomson, got a legal services job in Massachusetts and they moved to New England. A year later he was hired by Merrimack Valley Legal Services in Lowell as their benefits attorney. After six years, he became Associate Director/Litigation director at MVLS. On April 1, 1996 (no foolin - actual date) he was hired as the Advocacy Coordinator and staff humorist (not necessarily in that order) at NLS. He lives with Deb, 3 dogs and 3 cats in central Mass. Their son Andy and their 2 grandchildren, Sandra and Eric, live in Lowell.

Courses Taught

• Administrative Hearing Skills
• Affirmative Litigation
• Fundamentals of Attorneys Fees

Robert “Bob” Dwyer is a staff attorney with Florida Institutional Legal Services.  Prior to that Bob was the managing attorney of the Kissimmee office of Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida (CLSMF) since 1999.  Bob represented clients in pubic housing, subsidized housing and mobile home evictions in the Orlando office of Greater Orlando Area Legal Services, Inc. (which merged to form CLSMF in 2004) in both state and federal court.  Bob has also represented clients in Social Security, Bankruptcy, Consumer and Family Law matters since 1992.  He graduated from the State University of New York, College at Genesee in 1987 and earned his J.D. from Ohio Northern University in 1990.  He is a member of the New York and Florida Bar.

Courses Taught

• Administrative Hearing Skills

Valory Greenfield is a public benefits attorney at the Miami office of  Florida Legal Services, a program she first joined in 1996 (having previously held a similar position at Legal Services of Greater Miami for eleven years).  She received her J.D from the University of Miami School of Law, and has since served as an adjunct professor at Florida International University, teaching legal aspects of social work practice and as a guest lecturer at other local law schools.  With her FLS colleague Cindy Huddleston, Valory has co-authored the “Dissolution of Marriage and Public Benefits” chapter in The Florida Bar’s publication Florida Dissolution of Marriage (all editions from 1998 to present).  Valory has been active with the Boards of Directors of the Miami Workers Center, the Human Services Coalition of Dade County, and the Bromeliad Society of South Florida.  In her spare time, she performs with the improvisational theater troupe Chasing Tales.

Courses Taught

• Administrative Hearing Skills

Zenobia Lai is a veteran legal services lawyer having spent more than fourteen years at Greater Boston Legal Services. She launched the Community Law Project in 2006 to further expand the community lawyering practice that emphasizes lawyers’ collaboration with community groups and other professionals to build grassroots capacity.  Prior to that, Zenobia spent more than a decade leading the Asian Outreach Unit that provides linguistically and culturally accessible legal services to limited-English-proficient Asian immigrants in Greater Boston.  She has practiced in the areas of land use, zoning, housing, immigration, disability, domestic violence and family law.

During her brief hiatus from legal services, Zenobia was the executive director of Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco.  She was also the Deputy Research Director of the New York-based Human Rights in China where she researched and compiled parallel reports to the UN on China’s progress in implementing two key international human rights covenants and wrote on legal reform and social justice issues in China.

Aside from practicing law, Zenobia serves on the boards of directors of various non-profit groups, runs a legal segment on a Cantonese cable television show in the Boston area and teaches part-time at University of Massachusetts – Boston.

Courses Taught

• 2008-2009 NE Leadership Institute
• 2009-2010 Florida Leadership Institute
• 2010-11 Florida Leadership Institute
• Administrative Hearing Skills
• Community Lawyering
• Essential Skills for Paralegals and Legal Assistants
• Negotiation Skills
• Negotiation Skills Online
• Supervision Skills for Equal Justice Providers
• Whole Client / Whole Advocate

Wendy Robbins is a senior attorney with the Legal Aid Society of the Dade County Bar Association practicing Family Law, Domestic Violence, Dependency, and Administrative Appellate Law for the past 11 years. In addition to her ‘normal’ family law cases, she is the project attorney for the Transitioning Youth Administration Appeals Project and the Foster Youth Legal Services Referral Project. Prior to coming on board at Legal Aid, Wendy practiced civil litigation in Lake Worth, Florida. She is graduate of the University of Miami Law School, where she is a member of the Iron Arrow Honor Society, and is a second generation native Miamian.

Courses Taught

• Administrative Hearing Skills

Laurie Yadoff graduated from Hiram College in Ohio, attended Franklin Pierce Law School in New Hampshire and graduated in 1981.  Laurie was a Public Defender in New Hampshire from 1981 – 1985, a Court Administrator in New Hampshire from 1986-1996, and a Middle School Teacher from 1999-2003.  In 2003 she joined the Coalition for Independent Living Options as a staff attorney until 2006.  From 2006- 2007, Laurie was with Legal Aid of Broward as a Dependency Attorney. She is presently with Coast to Coast Legal Aid of South Florida as a Public Benefits staff attorney.

Courses Taught

• Administrative Hearing Skills