Although her daughter can't speak, Nick knows the look in KariRose's eye when she wants a jar of salsa, her favorite food. She knows just how to help her daughter through seizures that accompany Rett Syndrome.

But the resourceful mother chokes up when she speaks about her family's frustration since a layoff at her husband's Boise, Idaho company led them to relocate to Smithfield.

KariRose, 23, was living in a group home in Idaho - but in Utah, she has been on a waiting list for two years, with her mother giving up her career as a social worker to care for her.

"The longer I wait, the harder it's going to be for me to go back and become employed," worries Nick, 50.

After the pair drove to Salt Lake City's nonprofit Disability Law Center (DLC) looking for help last week, they learned KariRose is already part of a class action lawsuit the center has filed over the list.

The suit is the latest example of litigation pursued over three decades by the center, as it aims to change the way the state's disabled population lives. Federal law requires each state to have a protection agency for the disabled, and the DLC is the nonprofit organization filling that role in Utah.

The center's past lawsuits have moved the disabled out of institutions and into the community, made it easier for them to get around and ensured they can get specialized care and medical devices.

Yet of the 45,000 people the center has helped over the past 10 years, just 1 percent wound up in court - as the center has strived to instead resolve conflicts beforehand. The DLC's proposed advocacy goals for the next three years focus on assisting disabled people to understand their rights and become self-advocates.

"Before, we were very legally driven," said the center's executive director, Fraser Nelson. "Now we employ a far broader range of tools as we try to create change."

Since 2000, the DLC has provided rights training to 15,861 people. Recent efforts have included workshops aimed at helping disabled employees, students and consumers understand state and federal laws.

Sessions held at the Utah State Hospital, for example, educate people on everything from their rights on when they can have food to voting. In a program to educate developers, the center has made sure federal accessibility laws are considered in designs to ensure equal housing.

"Our mission is to enforce and strengthen laws that protect people with disabilities," Nelson said. "One of the ways to strengthen them is to make sure they know they can use them."

The center is not affiliated with the Salt Lake City's Disability Rights Action Committee - a watchdog group that has often sued Utah businesses to enforce accessibility laws.

The DLC's proposed goals have a special focus on rural Utah, where the center found the needs of the disabled to be greatest, following a yearlong "Listen and Learn" survey, Nelson said.

In the small town of Roosevelt, Bryon Murray laughs as he says some might dub him the "town troublemaker." His advocacy began when Roosevelt built a new playground last year, and Murray noticed that a wall was blocking kids with wheelchairs from using it.

"I went to the Disability Law Center and told them about it," he said, "and [the city] changed it and put a sidewalk to it so kids in wheelchairs can get in there."

At 40, Murray walks with a limp from a childhood accident that also damaged his brain. He used to work as a janitor, but quit when his doctor warned him to slow down.

"I have two boys and they are normal, but I hate the word 'normal' because there is no normal," he said. "If anything happened to them, I would want everything to be accessible. I have friends in wheelchairs."

Since then he's asked businesses in town to make sure their handicapped parking complies with federal laws, with the help of the DLC. He's pushed for creating public transportation in the Vernal basin, and worked on raising funds for a recreation center with a pool that could allow the disabled to exercise year-round.

Murray sees what he is doing as teaching his children respect for others.

"We are coming a long ways out here, and I am so glad to see DLC in the fight because people with disabilities don't have much resources or friends," he said. "But we are slowly telling agencies, 'No, you're not doing it your way, we are doing it our way.' They are there for people with disabilities."

eneff@sltrib.com