KATHERINE N. BARR
 Sirote & Permutt, P.C.
Birmingham, Alabama

KATHERINE N. BARR - is a shareholder in the Birmingham office of Sirote & Permutt, P.C. As part of her estate planning practice, she routinely helps families create estate plans with special needs trusts, and assists trial lawyers in establishing court-created special needs trusts, designing structured settlements and implementing other strategies to receive an injured party's settlement funds while maintaining eligibility for government assistance benefits.

Katherine earned a B.A. from Auburn University and an M.B.A. from Samford University before attending law school. She is a cum laude graduate of Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, where she served as an editor of The Cumberland Law Review.

A former chair of the Real Property, Trust and Estate Section of the American Bar Association's (RPTE) Committee on Long-Term Care, Medicaid and Special Needs Trusts, Katherine presently serves on the Governing Council of the ABA RPTE section, and is the Supervisory Council Member of its Elder and Disability Law Group, overseeing its Committees on Special Needs Trusts, Surrogate Decision Making and Bioethics. She was selected as Alabama's first member of Special Needs Alliance, a national organization of lawyers dedicated to disability and public benefits law. She is a Fellow in the American College of Trust and Estate Council and serves on its Elder and Disability Law Committee. Katherine is also a Fellow in the American Bar Foundation, a charter member of the Elder Law Section of the Alabama State Bar, a member of the Birmingham Estate Planning Council and a member of NAELA (National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys).

Katherine has served on the Board of the Parent Advocate Down Syndrome (PADS) group in Birmingham and Camp ASCCA (Alabama's Special Camp for Children and Adults, a March of Dimes Organization). She presently serves on the Advisory Board of the Alabama Family Trust (Alabama's pooled trust for persons with disabilities) and is active with the Alabama Head Injury Foundation, the Autism Society of Alabama and the local chapter of United Cerebral Palsy. She rarely misses an opportunity to speak to a group of parents, lawyers or other advisors to share information about the importance and methods of protecting assets and government benefits for persons with disabilities.