LEND report

In LEND today, we had our second presentation about affecting policy. The panel was impressive and interesting. Lynn Breedlove, the director of Disability Rights Wisconsin, spoke. He was upbeat and bright. More optimistic than I am. [After all the time I spent when I first moved to Madison, trying to get a job at his agency, there he was sitting right in front of me. They do so much of the advocacy work that I would love to do. The problem seemed to be that I was applying for non-lawyer jobs and no one would believe that I would be satisfied doing that. Of course, that might have not been the only bar to employment.] Mark Miller, state senator and co-chair of the budget committee, and a woman named Liz, of whom I need to check my notes, filled out the panel. These three have worked together often on disability issues, and talked about their experience getting funding for the family care for children and other disability issues. Doing some work involving policy is very alluring. I would love the research arm of it, and I would probably like the advocacy once I understood issues. However, putting myself in a policy position would be too much like going back to legal work.

Still, I hope to learn a bit about this kind of advocacy.