We are now living into our 90’s, and special needs children are living into their 70’s. As a result, people are dealing with legal issues which they and their lawyers have not encountered before. That is the reason Judy recently went back to school and earned an advanced law degree, an LLM in Elder Law, from Stetson University. In the course of her 30+ years as a lawyer, she has seen what can happen when individuals do not adequately plan for family members with disabilities or otherwise do not plan as well as they could have, for themselves. While she assists in resolving such crises, she prefers to help clients minimize emergencies by dealing with them upfront.
Judy’s first husband, Leo Shepura, was at the Jimmie Hale Mission for decades. Years after Leo passed away, she was blessed to meet her current husband, Brian O’Brien, through activities at their church. Because of her own journey in life, she has firsthand appreciation for faith-based values in individual stewardship and in addressing problems in society. She knows what it means to lose your spouse, to balance career with being a single parent, to remarry and participate in a blended family, and to care for an aging parent. She welcomes the opportunity to help individuals and their families address the challenges that accompany disabilities, the aging process, and death.