CDEL Executive Director Shares Year End Message

As we close 2025, I find myself filled with both gratitude and reflection. This year brought moments of real joy and progress for the Center for Disability & Elder Law, but it also presented significant challenges—especially for the older adults and persons with disabilities we serve. Throughout 2025, our clients faced increasing uncertainty, including threats to critical safety-net programs that so many rely upon for stability, health and dignity. In the face of these pressures, CDEL’s mission has never felt more urgent or more necessary.

I am deeply grateful to the volunteers who power our work every day. Fostering the spirit of pro bono service is central to who we are, but beyond that, our volunteers quite simply make our work possible. Through your time, expertise, and compassion, you ensure that our clients are not navigating complex legal systems alone. Your commitment reflects the very best of our legal community, and it is felt in our clinics, our workshops, our internship program and all of our placed cases.

I also want to extend my sincere thanks to our supporters—our foundation partners, government partners and individual donors—who have stepped forward with generosity and confidence during a particularly challenging time for the nonprofit sector. Your belief in our mission, especially when resources are stretched and needs are growing, sustains our ability to respond with strength, creativity and resolve. We do not take that trust lightly.

This year also marked an important leadership transition for CDEL. I want to acknowledge and thank Caroline Manley for her dedicated service as Executive Director. Caroline’s leadership and vision helped shape the organization we are today, and I am grateful for her contributions and steady stewardship. It has been an honor for me to step into the role of Executive Director, and I do so with deep respect for CDEL’s legacy and a strong sense of responsibility to our clients, staff, volunteers and supporters.

As we look ahead to 2026, I am hopeful—not because the challenges will disappear, but because of the community that surrounds this organization. Together, we will continue to advocate, to serve, and to stand with older adults and persons with disabilities as they seek fairness, stability, and justice.

Thank you for being part of this work and for walking alongside us.

With gratitude,

Michael Stone
Executive Director
Center for Disability & Elder Law