Denise is the First Vice President of the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the National Federation of the Blind, as well as on the board of the National Association of Blind Lawyers, a division of the NFB. She is the chair of the American Bar Association Commission on Disability Rights. She also serves as a Member at Large/Disability to the ABA’s nominating committee for the House of Delegates. She retired from the Office of the Cook County Public Defender in August 2017 after thirty years of service in the appellate and post-conviction units. Denise attended the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she received a B.A. in political science in 1980, and a J.D. in 1983. She received her M.A. in journalism from Roosevelt University in 2003.