Parents Representing Parents

My Arizona Practice

I have been licensed and practicing law in Arizona since 2009, have advocated within Arizona’s disability and healthcare systems for more than 15 years, and have made Arizona my home since 2022.

My work connects individual representation with an understanding of how schools, agencies, health plans, and public institutions make decisions. I have worked with families, healthcare providers, agency directors, legislators, attorneys, jail administrators, and institutional leadership.

That experience helps me examine a problem from several directions: what the records establish, which obligations apply, who has authority to act, and what needs to happen next.

Psychological and Educational Evaluations: Understanding the Evidence

My foundation in assessment began during my undergraduate studies, when I worked as an assistant and student editor for Dr. Jerome Sattler, helping prepare his assessment publications. His work on The Assessment of Children has been an important resource for school psychologists.

I earned my bachelor’s degree in psychology, graduating summa cum laude from San Diego State University. That education and early experience helped develop the analytical approach I bring to evaluations and disability-related evidence.

An assessment can determine whether a child receives services, which needs are recognized, and what interventions are offered. I help families examine whether the evaluation answers the right questions and whether its findings are being translated into an appropriate plan.

My experience includes:

• Examining educational and psychological evaluations for discrepancies, unanswered questions, and needs that may have been overlooked.
• Reviewing assessment methods and testing protocols and questioning whether the conclusions are supported by the information collected.
• Connecting evaluation findings to eligibility, goals, interventions, services, and placement.
• Helping parents understand assessment results and prepare informed questions for evaluators and service teams.
• Using records and research to challenge incomplete assessments and decisions that do not adequately account for the individual’s functioning.
• Training attorneys and advocates to use evaluations, testing information, research, and disability-related evidence in their advocacy.

Special Education Advocacy, Hearings, and Litigation

My practice includes representing families in special education disputes, administrative due process proceedings, negotiations, mediation, and civil litigation.

Parents often come to me because their child is struggling, services are inadequate, an evaluation has overlooked important needs, or school has become unsafe. I work to connect those concerns to the evidence and identify the changes the child needs.

My experience includes:

• The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
• Assessment and eligibility disputes, including concerns that a child’s needs have not been fully identified or evaluated.
• Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and disputes involving inadequate goals, services, supports, or placements.
• Cases involving alleged abuse, inadequate supervision, and physical harm at school.
• Complaint preparation, evidence development, discovery, depositions, legal briefing, hearings, and trial.
• Negotiating agreements with school districts and agencies for appropriate supports, services, and placements.
• Representing school employees and contractors facing retaliation in matters involving pressure to withhold evidence or information relevant to students’ cases.
• Advocating before school boards and legislative bodies concerning discrimination, harm, and needed changes affecting students with disabilities.

I help families understand their options and weigh the urgency of the child’s needs, the available evidence, and the practical consequences of each next step.

Arizona Medicaid, DDD, Attendant Care, and Healthcare Advocacy

Bringing Decision-Makers Together When Families Need Action

For more than 15 years, I have advocated within Arizona’s healthcare and developmental disability systems, helping individuals and families pursue eligibility, appropriate services, and adequate support.

My recent Arizona work has focused on individuals with complex developmental, medical, and behavioral needs whose families face severe behavioral crises, placement barriers, provider refusals, and inadequate or unavailable services.

My advocacy brings agency leadership, health-plan representatives, and clinical providers together to address unresolved needs. Working alongside clients and families, I press for the participation of decision-makers, help direct multidisciplinary meetings, challenge gaps in services, and seek clear commitments about responsibility and next steps.

This work spans DDD, AHCCCS/ALTCS, behavioral health providers, and managed care organizations such as Mercy Care. It is particularly important when fragmented responsibilities, provider limitations, or disputes over authorization leave a family without a safe, appropriate, and sustainable care arrangement.

My Arizona experience includes:

• AHCCCS/Medicaid: advocacy concerning healthcare eligibility, access to covered care, authorizations, and service denials.
• ALTCS—the Arizona Long Term Care System: pursuing long-term services and supports that reflect the individual’s needs.
• DDD—the Division of Developmental Disabilities: eligibility, assessments, person-centered planning, service authorizations, and access to qualified providers.
• Attendant care and in-home support hours: examining whether assessments and authorized assistance accurately reflect functional needs, safety concerns, and care being provided by family members.
• Managed care organizations, including Mercy Care: addressing care coordination, provider access, treatment authorizations, and gaps between medical and behavioral health services.
• Respite, habilitation, and residential supports: challenging barriers that leave families with a written plan or authorization but no practical access to appropriate care.
• Complaints, grievances, appeals, and administrative proceedings: developing evidence and legal arguments to challenge adverse decisions and unresolved service failures.

Behavioral Health, Crisis Services, and Placement Advocacy

A family’s needs rarely fit within one agency’s responsibilities. An individual may need developmental disability supports, medical treatment, behavioral healthcare, educational services, and residential care at the same time.

I help families pursue coordinated responses that account for the whole person, including when available providers lack the capacity to address overlapping medical and behavioral needs.

My experience includes:

• Helping direct Child and Family Team (CFT), Adult Recovery Team (ART), and Person-Centered Service Plan (PCSP) discussions toward specific decisions, responsibilities, and timelines.
• Pressing for participation by agency leadership, health-plan representatives, clinical providers, and others with authority to address unresolved needs.
• Advocating for higher levels of care and appropriate residential treatment.
• Addressing gaps between medical, developmental disability, and behavioral health services.
• Pursuing consideration of out-of-network care and single-case agreements when available providers cannot meet the individual’s needs.
• Documenting provider refusals, including barriers attributed to medical complexity, disability-related support needs, staffing, or training.
• Building a record of requests, assessments, denials, delays, and unmet needs to support complaints, appeals, and further advocacy.

My attention extends beyond obtaining a written authorization to whether the individual can actually receive appropriate care.

The California Experience Behind My Arizona Advocacy

My Arizona practice builds on earlier work within California’s developmental disability, Medicaid, in-home support, and public benefits systems.

Before becoming an attorney, I worked at San Diego Regional Center as an Intake Social Worker and Parent Coordinator. California’s regional centers coordinate services for individuals with developmental disabilities. That work gave me firsthand experience with eligibility review, service planning, family support, and the administrative processes behind agency decisions.

At Legal Aid of San Diego’s Consumer Center, I worked as a Law Clerk and Health Advocate assisting individuals with disabilities and people with limited financial resources through healthcare and public benefits disputes.

My California experience includes:

• Intake and eligibility preparation: screening referrals, gathering records and supporting evidence, and helping prepare cases for regional center eligibility review.
• Individual program planning and family support: assisting families in developmental disability, IEP, and public benefits meetings.
• Medi-Cal/Medicaid—California’s Medicaid program: advocacy involving eligibility, benefits, and access to healthcare.
• In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS): advocacy concerning assistance with daily activities that helps eligible individuals remain safely at home.
• Administrative hearings and negotiations: working with government agencies, health plans, and healthcare providers on disputed benefits and access to care.
• Regional center and county service disputes: helping families assemble records, present their needs, and challenge eligibility and service decisions.
• Healthcare grant-supported advocacy: independently managing a caseload helping patients pursue public health benefits and address hospital reimbursement issues.
• Bilingual family education: developing orientations, community presentations, resource information, and outreach in English and Spanish.

My California IHSS experience provided a practical foundation for my Arizona attendant care and in-home support advocacy. Although the programs have different rules, both require careful attention to functional needs, adequate assistance, and whether authorized services are being delivered.

Constituent Casework With Departmental Executive Leadership

As the Senate District Representative responsible for developmental disability, healthcare, and social services matters for California Senator Denise Moreno Ducheny, I handled constituent cases involving many of the same concerns I now address in Arizona.

Senator Ducheny’s leadership included chairing both the Joint Legislative Budget Committee and the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, placing her office at the center of major state spending and oversight decisions.

I worked directly with departmental executive offices to investigate disputed decisions, clarify responsibility, and pursue resolution of service and benefits barriers affecting individuals with disabilities.

My responsibilities included:

• Handling individual constituent cases involving disability services, healthcare access, public benefits, and alleged violations of legal rights.
• Working with state agency directors and departmental executive leadership when concerns required intervention beyond the assigned service team.
• Investigating disputed decisions and seeking resolution of administrative barriers.
• Researching policy, tracking legislation, briefing the senator, and representing her office in meetings.
• Identifying broader policy and implementation concerns revealed by individual cases.

That experience informs how I examine the relationship between public funding, agency administration, and the services families receive.

Medicaid Waiver Policy, Implementation, and Federal Renewal

My experience also extends to the policy and federal approval processes that shape Medicaid services.

Through my legislative work and Senate task force participation, I took part in discussions about California’s Medicaid waiver programs, their implementation, and the federal waiver renewal application process involving the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Medicaid programs operate under a combination of federal requirements, state plans, and federally approved waivers. Arizona’s AHCCCS system, including ALTCS, operates under a Section 1115 demonstration waiver. California’s Medi-Cal system uses several federal authorities, including Section 1115 demonstrations, Section 1915(b) managed care waivers, and Section 1915(c) home and community-based services waivers.

My experience includes:

• Medicaid waiver policy discussions and implementation planning.
• Participation in the federal waiver renewal application process.
• Bringing constituent experiences and service-access concerns into policy discussions.
• Examining how program administration, funding structures, and federal approvals affect access to services.
• Connecting individual service disputes with broader questions about implementation and accountability.

For families, those structures affect practical concerns: who qualifies, what assistance is available, how care is authorized, and what happens when services cannot be obtained. My experience across both states helps me examine these issues while accounting for each program’s distinct requirements.