Sheila O'Leary Zakre has a rare combination of broad legal knowledge and real understanding gained from a lifetime of practical experience dealing with disabilities and advocating for disability-related issues.

Sheila has more than 17 years of legal advocacy, including civil litigation/lawsuits, benefits planning and applications for nursing home and home-based care for seniors and estate planning to enhance and preserve financial independence.

Sheila's commitment to elder and disability issues is longstanding, and includes private practice in elder law and estate planning with Laboe Associates, P.L.L.C., Concord, New Hampshire, 11 ˝ years as a staff attorney at the Disabilities Rights Center, Inc., Concord, NH, clinical staff faculty at Syracuse University School of Law, and staff attorney at Community Legal Services, Philadelphia, PA. In addition, in college she worked at Belchertown State School, Belchertown, MA, in a community-based program to integrate the facility's mental retarded residents into the community, and her 15 year old son is a special needs high school student.

Sheila is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA, and received her law degree from C.U.N.Y. Law School at Queens College, where the focus is "Law in the Service of Human Needs." She was the recipient of two nationally awarded scholarships: the Marian Davis Scholarship for outstanding students devoted to social change; and the Floyd Quails Scholarship, given to outstanding visually impaired and blind students.

She is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and the Elder Law, Estate Planning and Probate Law Section of the New Hampshire Bar Association.

Read more about Sheila's cases by clicking on the practice areas at left.