Shana Wynn graduated cum laude from North Carolina Central University School of Law in May 2015. She attended Winston-Salem State University for her undergraduate studies, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Ms. Wynn is committed to public service and meeting the needs of underrepresented communities. While in law school, much of her coursework and volunteer service focused on elder law issues. She served as the student manager of the law school’s Elder Law Project, a pro bono program that provides wills and advance directives to low-income older adults in Durham, NC and surrounding counties. Ms. Wynn also interned with the American Bar Association’s Commission on Law and Aging in Washington, DC. As a 2013 Equal Justice Works Summer Corp fellow, Ms. Wynn worked at Legal Services of Southern Piedmont in Charlotte, NC as a law clerk in the Family Support and Health Care department.
As a 2015-2016 Borchard Fellow, Ms. Wynn joins Justice in Aging (formerly the National Senior Citizens Law Center) and the Neighborhood Legal Services Program (NLSP) in Washington, DC. Ms. Wynn will work closely with Justice in Aging attorneys to formulate policy recommendations to improve the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) representative payee program for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients and Social Security beneficiaries. Ms. Wynn will partner with NLSP to provide pro bono services to low-income seniors and secure access to healthcare and public benefits such as SSI. The primary goal of the project is to identify and address problems relating to SSA’s representative payee program as a means to better protect our most vulnerable seniors from misuse of their modest incomes.
