Inside the National Conference on the Employment of Lawyers with Disabilities
They arrived dressed mostly in conservative business attire, with briefcases in hand—exactly what one would expect from attorneys who have just left the office. But as more men and women entered the Thurgood Marshall Ballroom in Washington, DC’s, bustling Marriott Wardman Park Hotel on June 15, it became clear that this group was not only a unique gathering of legal minds, but also another vibrant slice of the diversity pie. Some members of the crowd used wheelchairs and crutches, while others relied on guide dogs and white canes with red tips to get where they needed to go.
As the large room filled, the attorneys greeted each other and broke off into small, animated groups.Through the friendly din, a more-casually dressed college-age woman could be heard asking an older female attorney if the LSAT makes accommodations for those with learning disabilities. She want to go to law school, but is uncertain about the test.
Alex J. Hurder, chair of the American Bar Association (ABA) Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law (the Commission), welcomed the roomful of participants to the second ABA National Conference on the Employment of Lawyers with Disabilities. He thanked the conference’s cosponsors, the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA), and then introduced keynote speaker Isaac J. Lidsky, law clerk to Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor (retired) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Lidsky spoke about the challenges he has overcome as an attorney who also is blind.
Designed to address the needs and interests of attorneys and law students who are mentally, physically, or sensory disabled, the conference—like the Commission’s first conference held in 2006—was composed of discussions, speeches, and networking. Sessions scheduled throughout the second day featured disabled and non-disabled panelists engaging in topics ranging from best employment and accommodation practices to mentoring and retention.
The centerpiece of this year’s conference was the Commission’s new Pledge for Change, which is essentially a promise to include disabled attorneys in the profession.“We were inspired by early diversity pledges,” explains Hurder, who, in addition to chairing the commission, is a clinical professor of law at Vanderbilt Law School and directs a clinic that represents clients in special education and Social Security disability cases. “We’re asking legal employers to sign the pledge. We’re keeping a list of those who’ve endorsed the pledge on our website. That way, we can keep track of the response, as well as give publicity to those who’ve signed on.1
“Our first disability conference three years ago centered on law firms and the role they play in legal employment,”he continues. “It was very successful and generated lots of excitement, but naturally didn’t fix the problem entirely. For this year’s conference, we decided to focus on corporations. In addition to knowing that we could partner with corporate-oriented organizations like ACC and MCCA, we were also aware of the power inherent in corporate legal departments. Because corporations hire firms, they have a lot of leverage—especially when it comes to outlining what they expect from the people they’re hiring. There may be a handful of corporate counsel in a corporation, but they have a lot of influence in the legal world.”
The centerpiece of this year’s conference was the Commission’s new Pledge for Change, a promise to include disabled attorneys in the profession.
The commission learned at its first conference that its audience was not made up exclusively of hiring partners; in fact, most attendees were either associate and senior lawyers with disabilities or law students with disabilities who wanted to learn how to use the system to get jobs, security, and equal treatment.This year’s 170 conference participants reflected the same makeup.Hurder noted that “the disabilities are varied—there are blind people and those who use wheelchairs or pull an oxygen supply—and it’s impossible to know them all. Not all the disabilities are visible—chronic fatigue syndrome,asthma, bipolar disorder, learning disabilities—and some participants decline to disclose their disability. Among the panelists, both disabled and not, are attorneys who influence hiring in firms,corporations, and government.”
The speeches and sessions making up the second day of the conference included MCCA executive director Veta T. Richardson's morning address to participants. Richardson emphasized the importance for legal employers to include the disabled in their broader diversity efforts, and to be more sensitive to the concerns of employees with disabilities in general. Referring to MCCA’s recent study, Sustaining Pathways to Diversity: The Next Steps in Understanding and Increasing Diversity & Inclusion in Large Law Firms, she noted the need for firms to focus more intently on making sure they strongly communicate their diversity values and the work being done by the diversity committee,particularly where disabled women are concerned.
At lunch, Kareem A. Dale, associate director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and special assistant to the president for disability policy, delivered a speech detailing the White House’s efforts to employ those with disabilities, and the challenges of being a lawyer who is blind. Later in the day, Baker Botts managing partner Walter J. Smith participated in a session on employment, in which he spoke about his personal experience as the father of a son with cognitive disabilities and his great success with employing staff and attorneys with disabilities at the firm’s offices throughout the world.
In the morning, Carrie G. Basas, a commission member and assistant law professor at the University of Tulsa focusing on disability rights, moderated a discussion on reasonable accommodation at law school and work. Born with Larsen’s syndrome, a congenital disease that affects the joints, Basas currently uses a cane. Throughout her life, she has undergone more than 40 operations, and experienced the full range of mobility from no cane to being in a wheelchair. Consequently, she has also experienced a full range of attitudes and reactions,depending upon where she is in that mobility cycle.
“Accommodations are critical. Without them, many disabled people can’t attend law school or enter the workforce,” says Basas, who is currently working on a book of letters from seasoned disabled attorneys to their younger counterparts, to be titled Lawyers Lead On. “During my years at Harvard Law School, I needed a parking space near the dorm, and I had to reschedule one class because it was in an inaccessible classroom. Those were my only accommodations.
“A study I did a year ago showed that disabled women were widely self accommodating because they were afraid to ask employers for accommodations; they feared such a request would change the dynamic of the workplace and they’d be rejected,” she continues. Basas also referenced additional work on the subject by the Job Accommodation Network, a free service provided by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy, whose mission is to facilitate the employment and retention of workers with disabilities. Basas notes that “the majority of accommodations is free or may cost $50 or less. There are exceptions,but for the most part, employers’ fears of burdensome expense are unfounded.”
When Basas was a law student at Harvard, no disabled mentors or disabled fellow law students were among her colleagues or resources at the school. “I had no one to talk to about the realities of disability,” she remembers. “I had no idea what the workplace was going to be like; I was clueless about employers’ attitudes and accommodations. So, in law school, I started a listserve for lawyers and law students with disabilities a place where they could go to for the information they wanted and needed.”
Currently, the National Association for Law Students with Disabilities (NALSWD) no connection to Basas’s listserv offers pertinent information, peer support, and networking opportunities. Basas is on the advisory board. Through its partnership with the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities,the association is raising awareness and advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities within the legal profession. NALSWD’s national student organization’s impact on recruiting, training, and mentoring law students with disabilities strives to directly benefit the legal community.
ABA president H. Thomas Wells Jr. was on hand for much of the conference. “A year ago, the ABA restated its mission,” Wells recalls. “We used to have eleven goals; now we’ve winnowed down our priorities to just four. They are to serve our members; serve the profession; serve the public; and promote diversity. When the ABA talks about diversity, we’re referring not only to women and racial and ethnic diversity, but also sexual orientation gender identity [SOGI] diversity and mental and physical disability diversity. This gives you an idea of just how committed the ABA is in bringing disabled attorneys into the workforce.
“The profession is definitely evolving – and I should know, because I’ve been a lawyer since the Stone Age,” continues the amiable Wells. “It’s a fact that we’ ve done better in some areas of diversity than in others. When it comes to racial and ethnic minorities and women, we’ve done OK, but need to do better. We haven’t done as well in areas like SOGI and the disabled. That’s why this conference is so important: It’s a learning experiencefor all of us.” DB
Patrick Folliard is a freelance writer based in Silver Spring, Md
Notes
1 For more information on the pledge, see www.abanet.org/disability/.
From the Sepetember/October 2009 issue of Diversity & The Bar®