Joel Ferber is the Director of Advocacy of Legal Services of Eastern Missouri (LSEM). He is a graduate of John Hopkins University and New York University School of Law. Joel has conducted extensive advocacy regarding public benefits, Medicaid, managed care, the Food Stamp Program, and low income health care issues. Joel has also litigated cases affecting low-income clients in the United States District Courts and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He was also one of the lead attorneys representing Missouri consumer groups in the settlement of a lawsuit involving the reorganization of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Missouri: a settlement that established the Missouri Foundation for Health, the largest health care foundation in the state of Missouri. Joel has won numerous awards including the Alberta Slavin Award from Consumers Council of Missouri (in 2012) and the Clarence Darrow award from St. Louis University School of Law (in 2011). Joel has been a presenter at numerous state and national conferences and has written extensively on health care access and public benefits in Clearinghouse Review, the St. Louis University Law Journal and elsewhere. He has also been a trainer on Affirmative Litigation and related advocacy for the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, the Center for Legal Aid Education and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. Joel is currently chair of the Community Advisory Council of the Missouri Foundation for Health (MFH) and an ex officio member of MFH’s board of directors.