Joel Ferber is the Director of Advocacy of Legal Services of Eastern Missouri (LSEM).  He is a graduate of John Hopkins University and New York University School of Law.

Joel has conducted extensive advocacy regarding public benefits, Medicaid, managed care, the Food Stamp Program (now called SNAP), and low income health care issues.  Joel has litigated cases affecting low-income clients in the United States District Courts, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, the Missouri Court of Appeals and the Missouri Supreme Court. He was also one of the lead attorneys representing Missouri consumer groups in the settlement of a lawsuit involving the reorganization of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Missouri: a settlement that established the Missouri Foundation for Health, the largest health care foundation in the state of Missouri.   Joel has won numerous awards including the Alberta Slavin Award from Consumers Council of Missouri (2012), the Clarence Darrow award from St. Louis University School of Law (2011), the Rachel Farr Fitch Health Care Award from the League of Women Voters (2022) and many others. He is also a recent winner of the Missouri Lawyer of the Year award (2022), along with Chuck Hatfield (Stinson) and Lowell Pearson (Husch Blackwell) for their successful litigation to enforce the Medicaid expansion requirement of the Missouri Constitution.

Joel has been a presenter at numerous state and national conferences and has written extensively on health care access, advocacy and public benefits in Clearinghouse Review, the St. Louis University Law Journal, the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, and elsewhere. He has also been a trainer on Affirmative Litigation and related advocacy for the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, the Center for Legal Aid Education, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and the Committee on Regional Training (CORT). Joel recently completed a term as chair of the Community Advisory Council of the Missouri Foundation for Health (MFH) and served as an ex officio member of MFH’s board of directors.

In his spare time, Joel plays the mandolin in the band “As the Crowe Flies” at various clubs and festivals in the St. Louis region.  Joel, who grew up in New York, is an avid fan of the New York Giants, and watches games regularly with other transplanted New Yorkers.