Biography - Elizabeth Stakenborg
Elizabeth Stakenborg manages the Social Security department for Sims, Stakenborg & Henry. Liz grew up in a rural farming town in central Illinois.
She loved living on a farm with her 4 brothers and sisters and various dogs, cats, horses and cattle. It was a typical idyllic small town childhood where she would ride horses through the town, walk to the local swimming pool and everyone knew each other. Her parents encouraged her to leave the small town and attend university out of state so that she would have a broader perspective of life outside the small town.
She was one of a small percentage of out of state students admitted to University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. She graduated, met her husband, and moved to Canada where she lived for 10 years.
While in Canada, Liz became aware of socialized medicine and realized how many Americans were without adequate health care. She decided she wanted to become a lawyer specializing in helping the disabled in the United States.
Her family was offered the opportunity to move to Florida and Liz immediately applied to the University of Florida - one of the top public law schools in the U.S. She graduated with honors in 1994.
After graduating, Liz was lucky enough to find Dorothy Sims and her law firm. Dorothy took Liz under her wing where Liz initially practiced in the area of workers’ compensation law. She helped hundreds of workers' compensation claimants receive the benefits to which they were entitled, but often they had to litigate in order to receive those benefits.
While doing worker's compensation law, Liz found herself assisting claimants in their social security disability claims and decided to change her focus.
She now manages the department and has enjoyed representing hundreds of claimants in their Social Security hearings. Liz prepares written memoranda and she has often been asked by the Administrative Law Judges to prepare the favorable opinion.
She has access to software which permits a deep background search on doctors hired by the Administration whom she suspects may not be appropriately scientific in their conclusions. Liz usually obtains all jury verdicts, licensure verifications, all state and national citations on these doctors and is able to show why they are not credible.
She also prepares memoranda on cases citing state of the art journal articles and medical references that are obtained through pay websites that the firm aggressively peruses on a daily basis. Liz is a member of the National Organization of Veterans Advocates.
The firm maintains a data bank of hundreds of articles and references on many conditions to assist in all cases. In some situations, references to a single doctor offered by the administration may result in an objection by our Social Security Disability team that is hundreds of pages long - longer than the entire social security file itself!
Liz has been so successful that several judges now request she prepare the orders approving benefits for them, something she is very glad to do.
When asked about her career choice in life, Liz quickly responded –
"I am proud to be part of a law firm comprised of truly caring professionals who work very hard to ensure our clients receive the respect, compassion and benefits to which they are entitled. There is no better feeling than to truly help someone when that person has fallen on hard times and has nowhere to turn, and make a difference in that person’s quality of life."
