Shirley B. Whitenack has been elected an At-Large Trustee of the New Jersey State Bar Association for the 2016 – 2018 term.   She will be sworn in at the May 2016 NJBA Annual Meeting and Convention to be held in Atlantic City, NJ.

Ms. Whitenack is a partner at Schenck, Price, Smith & King, LLP. She co-chairs the firm’s Elder and Special Needs Law Practice Group and the Estates and Trusts Litigation Practice Group. Ms. Whitenack devotes a substantial portion of her practice to elder and special needs law, estate planning and administration and trust and estate litigation. She  is on the State of New Jersey roster of approved mediators.

Ms. Whitenack received the NJSBA’s Legislative Service Award in September 2003 for her contribution in drafting and promoting revisions to New Jersey’s guardianship statutes and the NJSBA’s Amicus Curiae Award in 2004. Ms. Whitenack received GANJI’s Recognition Award in October 2003 for her contribution in advocating for the civil rights of incapacitated individuals. She received NJICLE’s Distinguished Service Award in 2007 and the Distinguished Service Award from the NJSBA’s Elder & Disability Section in 2009. Ms. Whitenack received the Community Health Law Project’s Ann Klein Advocate Award in 2011 for improving the lives of people with disabilities and was recognized in 2011 by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey in a Joint Resolution for service to those with special needs. In 2012, she was honored by the NJSBA for her long service as a trustee of the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education and received the NJSBA’s Distinguished Legislative Service Award for her contribution to New Jersey’s enactment of the Uniform Adult Guardianship and Protective Proceedings Jurisdiction Act. Ms. Whitenack received the Morris County Bar Association’s Civil Practice Award in 2015.

Ms. Whitenack is the President of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA), a NAELA Fellow, and a member of NAELA’s Council of Advanced Practitioners (CAP), an invitation-only group of elder and special needs planning practitioners and has served as an adjunct professor of law in the J.D. and LL.M. in Elder Law Programs at Stetson University College of Law.