The Future of Advocacy is Human – 2026 Spring National Conference – Track II (Presented by National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives)

Mindy Yocum, Esq., Founder, Yocum Law & JusticeMobile; Founder, The Bar We Build

Mindy Yocum is an attorney, disability advocate, and legal innovator with a decade of experience at the intersection of Social Security disability law and access to justice design. She is the founder of Yocum Law and JusticeMobile, a mobile legal clinic serving underserved communities across Ohio, as well as the founder of The Bar We Build, a nationwide community helping lawyers create sustainable, client-centered practices through the BUILD Method™ framework and an AI-powered Client Care Coach. Mindy combines deep disability advocacy experience with a forward-looking commitment to legal education innovation, making her one of the most distinctive voices in the modern disability and legal services space.

• Education & Credentials

Mindy is a licensed attorney with a decade of concentrated experience in disability advocacy. Her credentials extend into the emerging field of legal practice design, where she has developed the BUILD Method™, a proprietary framework for helping attorneys build sustainable, client-centered practices and an AI-powered Client Care Coach deployed through The Bar We Build. Her work as a mobile legal clinic founder reflects both her legal credentials and her commitment to delivering legal services in innovative ways to communities that traditional law practice models have historically underserved.

• Recognition & Leadership

Mindy’s leadership spans disability law, mobile legal services, and nationwide legal practice innovation. Her founding of JusticeMobile, a mobile legal clinic bringing legal services directly to underserved Ohio communities — represents a model of access to justice delivery that has drawn attention well beyond state borders. Her creation of The Bar We Build, a nationwide practitioner community, and its accompanying BUILD Method™ framework and AI-powered coaching tool, establish her as a pioneering voice in the movement to reimagine how law practices are built and how lawyers serve clients. Her decade of disability advocacy provides the substantive grounding that makes her innovations both practically credible and mission-driven.

• Professional Involvement

Mindy’s professional involvement operates simultaneously across disability law practice, mobile legal service delivery, and national legal education. Through Yocum Law and JusticeMobile, she provides direct legal representation to Ohio’s underserved communities, removing the geographic and logistical barriers that prevent many individuals from accessing the disability advocacy they need. Through The Bar We Build, she supports attorneys across the country in developing practices that are both client-centered and professionally sustainable, using the BUILD Method™ and AI-powered tools to help lawyers work more effectively and ethically. This dual engagement, in the field and in the profession, makes her one of the more uniquely positioned practitioners in the disability and legal innovation space.

• Experience

Mindy Yocum has spent a decade building a career that refuses to stay within conventional boundaries. Her disability advocacy practice at Yocum Law is delivered in part through JusticeMobile, a mobile legal clinic that brings legal services to underserved Ohioans who might otherwise go unrepresented. Alongside her direct practice, she founded The Bar We Build, a nationwide attorney community organized around the BUILD Method™ and an AI-powered Client Care Coach, to help lawyers across the country design practices that genuinely serve clients while remaining sustainable for the practitioners themselves. Her combination of disability advocacy experience, access to justice innovation, and legal education leadership reflects a practitioner who is simultaneously shaping how disability law is practiced today and how legal services will be delivered tomorrow.

I. The Future of Advocacy is Human | 9:45am – 11:00am

In an era of automation, the most powerful innovation in Social Security practice isn’t software, it’s empathy. This session explores how client-centered innovation can strengthen outcomes in disability cases. Using the BUILD Method™, we’ll examine how intentional communication, trauma-informed approaches, and simulation-based training can rebuild trust, improve client cooperation, and enhance representation quality. Attendees will leave with practical strategies to integrate empathy, ethics, and innovation into every stage of their practice.