As stated by Hubert H. Humphrey, a graduate of the University of Minnesota, and a former U.S. Senator and Vice President of the United States:

The purpose of this law firm is to provide high quality legal representation for disabled individuals and veterans who have been denied benefits by the Social Security Administration, their LTD carrier and/or the Veterans Administration. With offices located in Olympia, Tacoma and Seattle, Washington, Halpern & Oliver, PLLC has very strong roots in the legal services movement back to 1968. Each attorney in the firm possesses significant experience in the legal representation of a wide variety of people including the poor and disadvantaged. The firm attempts to provide a nurturing and caring environment both for the claimants and veterans we represent and in interpersonal relationships among staff.

Firm in the belief that all people who are denied benefits have a right to due process, Halpern & Oliver, PLLC, provides its clients with a reasoned and precise analysis of their claim. We do not turn away clients because their cases are not likely to generate significant fees. We evaluate all cases on their merits, believing that every case is important to the individual involved. Our attorney fee is contingent in nature: we are only paid if we are able to obtain a grant of benefits, and if we do not, then we are not owed any attorney fee. We will only be paid if we generate retroactive benefits. The amount of our fee is determined by federal law and is limited to 25% of any retroactive back award only, generally up to a maximum of $5,300.00 (subject to adjustment by the Social Security Administration). Clients must, however, pay for costs associated with preparing their claim.

We handle Social Security, SSI and LTD disability cases administratively, including hearings before Administrative Law Judges. We also have a substantial number of cases that we have appealed to the Appeals Council. We have an extensive Federal District Court practice involving our own cases and referrals from several other attorneys who do not take cases to the Federal Courts. Amy Gilbrough has extensive experience in successfully handling cases in the 9th Circuit. Our veterans' disability practice involves administrative representation before the VA and BVA.

The recent "surge" in Iraq, which should never have occurred and could never have succeeded, has now predictably failed. While it may be true that violence in some parts of Baghdad has declined to June 2006 levels, there has been an increase in Iraq as a whole in the number of deaths from political violence. While Vice President Dick Cheney announced on September 14, 2007, that US and coalition forces were "getting things right in Iraq" and that the surge had "achieved solid results," he was wrong again. Ethnic cleansing has continued in spite of the surge and the humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq has worsened. There now are about 2.5 million Iraqis who are refugees in neighboring countries and another 2 million internally displaced Iraqis. Most of Iraq’s cities and towns continue to lack regular electricity, sanitation, water and other basic services. Nearly half of the Iraqis remain unemployed.

The surge has done nothing to create security in and around Baghdad to give Iraqi politicians breathing room to pursue reconciliation, the stated purpose of the surge. Since the surge was announced, over 600 servicemen and servicewomen have been killed and over 4000 injured. There has been a morally indefensible sacrifice of American and Iraqi lives in pursuit of unachievable goals. Because the Iraq War has been long lost, the time is NOW to bring it to a close. We believe that the withdrawal of US forces as quickly as possible is the best course of action for the United States, Iraq and the region. This would open the way for international mediation and peacekeeping efforts. The honorable way to prevent regional destabilization requires refocusing regional efforts and helping Iraq and its neighbors cope with the humanitarian crisis the US helped create.

Withdrawing American troops from Iraq is not only in our own national interest, it is the morally and responsible action to take. American power has failed to bring order and democracy to the region. The moral shortcomings of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Pearle, Powell and Rice, the architects of this war, are self-evident.

Former President George H.W. Bush in his 1998 memoir, "A World Transformed," understood the dilemma facing the United States following the first Gulf War in Iraq, stating as follows:

B. Will We Be in Iraq for Another 100 Years? (April 2008):

Five years after we began Iraqi Freedom, it is time to ponder the following:

• Weapons of mass destruction were non-existent
• We were not welcomed as liberators
• The war has failed to pay for itself
• There was no smoking gun
• No connection with 9/11 was found
• Iraq now is a recruiting place for Islamic terrorists
• Baghdad still has electricity only some of the time
• The projected cost of the war is now over $3,000,000,000,000, i.e., over three trillion dollars
• Our economy is now in a recession
• Bush’s folly has led us over a cliff

There have been over 4,000 American soldiers killed in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed, and tens of thousands badly wounded.

As summed up by Hans Blix recently in The Guardian in England:

"The invasion of Iraq in 2003 [is] a tragedy—for Iraq, for the U.S., for the U.N., for truth and human dignity."

In August of this year, the Burmese people began a new chapter in their effort to find peace and freedom for their war-torn country. Burma’s Buddhist monks began peacefully protesting in their attempt to bring change for the long-suffering people of Burma. As the saffron robed monks marched, tens of thousands joined the monks, reinforcing their collective demand that military rule finally give way to the people's desire for democracy.

Video and the internet initially allowed the world to witness the brutal response directed by the military junta and Gen. Than Shwe, Burma's de facto ruler and supreme military despot. Than Shwe’s response was to unleash his soldiers and the military junta’s thugs who attacked the monks and the people supporting them. The streets in Rangoon and Mandalay again were filled with the red blood of innocent monks and their supporters who were merely seeking to save Burma from the moral, social, political and economic crises that have consumed Burma since the military took over in 1962.

Hundreds of the Buddhist monks and nuns have been beaten and arrested, and many have been murdered. Thousands of Buddhist clergy have disappeared. Many of Burma’s sacred monasteries have been looted and destroyed. Intelligence units of the military junta continue to round up political and religious leaders.

The repressive actions of Burma’s military junta have ruined Burma’s economy. Burma was once the breadbasket of Asia, but now cannot feed itself. Burma once had an excellent educational system and the highest literacy rate in Asia, but once again the military junta has closed schools and universities, the literacy rate now being less than one-third of what it used to be.

China and Russia continue to block the United Nations’ Security Council from facilitating a dialogue between democratic forces in Burma and the military junta. Senior officials of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) have condemned the military junta’s actions but have done little else, each of the member countries continuing to trade with Burma. India, the world's largest democracy, as well as China, South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia continue to make economic investments in Burma, as well as provide military assistance and/or trade with Burma that helps finance the military junta’s war against its own people.

The United Nations must help bring peace to Burma, the Security Council being the proper forum. Security Council members must take the steps necessary to coerce the military junta to come to terms with the aspirations of the people of Burma. This involves setting a timetable for the military junta to release all political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi, permit free assembly of the people of Burma, and provide a full accounting of the thousands of Burmese who have disappeared. The Security Council must tighten sanctions by enforcing an embargo on all arms sales to the military junta. The sanctions likeliest to pressure the military junta are banking restrictions imposed on the top Burmese officials, their relatives, and the corrupt businessmen close to them. The Bush administration has led the way with such sanctions, and Australia has followed. The question remains as to whether European counties have the backbone to join in.

Burma's Saffron Revolution has only now just begun. The military junta’s use of mass arrests, murder, torture and imprisonment will not extinguish the desire of the people of Burma for the freedom that was taken from them in 1962.

December 10, 2007, began a yearlong advocacy campaign commemorating the 60^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which the United Nations ratified by a vote of 48 to 0 on December 10, 1948. President Bush hailed the Universal Declaration before the United Nations General Assembly in late September 2007, extolling the document as "a landmark achievement in the history of human liberty."

Article 5 of the Universal Declaration states that nobody "shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." Article 6 affirms that everybody "has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law." Article 25 further provides as follows:

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care, and necessary social services.

One can only wonder whether President Bush, before he spoke to the United Nations in September 2007, had ever read his speech, no prior President likely having gift-wrapped in any loftier rhetoric his foreign policy, nor been more successful in discrediting the sincerity of our country’s commitment to human rights. As citizens of the earth’s wealthiest country, we would appreciate that the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights be observed by the U.S., the only industrialized country except South Africa which does not provide universal health coverage for its citizens and non-citizens.

The firm management of Halpern & Oliver, PLLC, consisting of the Partners and Office Manager, intends to establish sustainable office practices consistent with its overall commitment to provide excellent legal services to clients. This policy is adopted to implement that intent.

The best-known definition of sustainability is contained in a 1987 report Our Common Future commissioned by the UN World Commission of Environment and Development:

Sustainable development is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

We recognize that all human activity, including the operation of a law office, has an impact on the environment and the natural world. Within Halpern & Oliver, PLLC, we make daily choices in performing work that can either reduce or increase that impact. As a firm we seek to reduce the impact.

Education. Because the daily actions of each person in the firm will contribute to the success of this policy, this policy includes a provision for education of all new lawyers and staff on sustainability matters. In the long run, the initiative of each individual will be the key to the success of the policy.

Sustainability Coordinator. One person shall be designated as the Sustainability Coordinator for the firm. The time allocated for work as Coordinator shall be determined by the firm management. The Coordinator shall organize and lead the Sustainability Team, be responsible for training all employees in an understanding of sustainability, make recommendations to firm management to implement the policy, and keep awareness of this policy at a high level within Halpern & Oliver, PLLC.

Sustainability Team. The Sustainability Team will meet on a regular basis to evaluate current practices, determine priorities in carrying out this policy, and educate and motivate lawyers and staff to move toward sustainable practices. Anyone with ideas for improving the firm's performance is encouraged to contact a member of the Sustainability Team. The Sustainability Team will make periodic reports to the firm management regarding the progress Halpern & Oliver, PLLC, is making toward sustainability.

Purchasing. Sustainability shall be considered in the purchase of supplies, equipment, and services. Examples of sustainability criteria are recyclability, biodegradability, recycled content, waste minimization, hazardous-chemical free, energy conservation, resource conservation, locally manufactured and organic.

Waste Reduction and Recycling. Subject to security and other requirements, policies shall be established that minimize the use of paper in data storage, printing and copying, internal and external communications, and mailing. Systems will be established to minimize disposables and packaging, reuse equipment and supplies where feasible, and maximize recycling of all items that can be recycled in this region.

Energy. Policies shall be established that encourage energy conservation and efficiency in heating/cooling, lighting and equipment.

Travel. The Sustainability Team shall consider means for reducing business travel, including teleconferencing options, strategies for reducing the impact of travel, and carbon offsets.

Commuting. The firm management shall establish commuter incentives to encourage use of mass transit, carpooling, walking, jogging and bicycling.

Carbon Credits/Green Power. Halpern & Oliver, PLLC, will consider the purchase of carbon credits to offset all or a portion of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with our operations and the purchase of green power to encourage alternatives to fossil fuels.

Tenant Improvements. When office improvements are made, Halpern & Oliver, PLLC, shall specify materials that are the least hazardous and most natural and give preference to those that are high in recycled content, recyclable or biodegradable, certified sustainable and durable.

Implementation and Measuring Success. In implementing this policy, Halpern & Oliver, PLLC personnel shall consider three documents prepared by Oregon Lawyers for a Sustainable Future and available on its Web site

 www.earthleadershipcenter.org/OLSF/office_practice):

(1) Sustainable Practices of the Law Office, (2) Best Practices of Office Building Management, and(3) Guidelines for Tenant Improvements. Where practicable, baselines shall be established for practices that can be measured--such as paper used, recycled content of supplies, disposables purchased, percentage of office waste that is recycled, and electricity used. Progress shall be reported at least annually.