Lorri Shealy Unumb
Council of Autism Service Providers
Lorri Shealy Unumb is a lawyer, professional speaker, law professor, mother of three young adult boys, and an internationally renowned autism advocate.
She began her legal career clerking for a United States District Judge in Charleston, South Carolina, and then moved to Washington, D.C. to practice law with the United States Department of Justice. She enjoyed a fulfilling career as an appellate litigator, arguing civil cases in Circuit Courts all over the United States.
After working as a law professor at law schools in D.C. (George Washington University) and Charleston, Lorri began running and teaching advocacy courses at the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Advocacy Center. During the same period, she hosted an award-winning weekly cable TV show called “The Law with Professor Lorri.”
Following her firstborn son’s diagnosis with autism, Lorri began working in autism advocacy as a volunteer, writing ground-breaking autism insurance legislation for South Carolina (“Ryan’s Law”) that passed in 2007 and served as the catalyst for the national movement toward autism insurance reform. In recognition of Ryan’s Law, Lorri was awarded the Autism Society of America 2008 “Parents of the Year” award (along with her husband Dan). She then was recruited by the New York-based nonprofit Autism Speaks to advocate full-time on behalf of individuals with autism.
Alongside her career with Autism Speaks, in 2010 Lorri founded the Autism Academy of South Carolina, a non-profit, year-round diagnostic and treatment center for individuals with autism; in 2019, the board of directors voted to rename the academy “The Unumb Center for Neurodevelopment” in honor of Lorri & Dan’s extensive national contributions in the autism field. Lorri & Dan also wrote the first-ever comprehensive textbook on legal issues related to autism, called “Autism and the Law.” Additionally, Lorri is in her 19th year of organizing and conducting the annual “Autism Law Summit,” a national gathering of parents and professionals who advocate for legal and policy changes to better the lives of individuals with autism. Finally, in 2018, Lorri was appointed by the governor of South Carolina to serve as a Commissioner for the SC Department of Disabilities and Special Needs, which administers several of the state’s Medicaid waivers.