In April 2016, a group of deaf and hard-of-hearing attorneys was admitted to the Bar of the United States Supreme Court. As more lawyers with disabilities enter the profession, firms need a clearer sense of how to build an environment that looks at what people can do.
The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, including in the application and interview process, and requires reasonable accommodation. Is your firm ready?
Attorneys are often expected to look, sound and act a certain way, and that expectation is a barrier of its own. Some ways to assess where your firm stands:
- Is your mission statement inclusive? The mission statement is where people read which values matter to the firm. One that expressly includes people with disabilities is a good start.
- Assess your employment and interviewing process. Hiring staff tend to assume every candidate arrives with the same abilities, and that assumption quietly excludes applicants who need the process adjusted. Are you prepared to arrange a sign-language interpreter, or to hold an interview in an accessible room?
- Assess professional qualifications. A lawyer with a disability has completed the same degree and holds the same license. Assess every candidate on professional ability, as you would any other.
- Make accommodations. An inclusive environment requires a willingness to adjust. Remote work, braille materials and assistive technology are among the reasonable accommodations a firm can provide.
None of this asks a firm to lower its professional requirements. Accommodation is about access to the work, not about the standard applied to it, and attorneys with disabilities deliver in a competitive environment exactly as their peers do.
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