Lawyers with disabilities face extra challenges, especially within BigLaw. Per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 27% of adults in the U.S. live with some form of disability. The most recent National Association for Law Placement Report on Diversity found that 0.8% of partners and 1.73% of associates self-reported living with a disability.
While disabilities vary widely in severity, and in their effect on one's ability to work full time, this is still a massive gap between the number of disabled Americans and disabled lawyers. One reason for the delta may be that disability is underreported by attorneys themselves. There can be shame around the identification — totally unwarranted, of course — and there can be a fear of being stigmatized.
The culture of constant availability can be untenable for lawyers with disabilities. Attorneys living with disabling conditions literally cannot be available at all hours — they may have medical appointments that must come first, traveling to and from meetings may take them longer, they may need more sleep than most BigLaw lawyers get, it may take them longer to type — the list could go on.
I write this as a legal recruiting professional and former lawyer who lives with a disability. In fact, I drafted this article while an inpatient at Stanford Hospital, undergoing a trial of a pain medication.
I became disabled in the fall of 2021. My disability is extensive nerve damage in my corneas, causing severe chronic pain from when I wake to when I sleep. This condition affects almost every aspect of my work.
Until I started to receive helpful treatment — both pharmacological, and in terms of pain psychology and mindfulness — it was nearly impossible for me to stare at a computer screen for any meaningful portion of the day. If I was on the phone, I had my eyes closed. It took me a lot longer to type because of constantly needing to look away from the screen.
Taking in-person meetings in offices where I couldn't control the climate — forced air is painful for me — was either impossible or led to self-consciousness. Being on video — and therefore unable to keep my eyes closed — was, and still is, a pain.
The adjustment to life as a person, and a professional, with a disability also took a huge toll on me emotionally. People respond to being or becoming disabled at work in a variety of different ways.
In my case, I doubled down — finding a huge amount of satisfaction in helping people find jobs that made them happier, and in my own success as I did so. I have never had more empirically measured success at work than I have since I got sick.
Disabled employees — at law firms and elsewhere — are doing it all backward and in heels. Nonetheless, many of us will rise to the top of our field, which is something that should be celebrated. But how can we help disabled lawyers get on the right track?
Can disabled lawyers get jobs?
A NALP bulletin on employment outcomes for disabled law students' career outcomes stated that the employment rate for disabled students in 2022 was 6% lower than for students who didn't report living with a disability.
While that's not a huge gap, it's still a strong signal of the disadvantages that disabled law students face. Disabled law students may also struggle to keep up in law school, and therefore have lower grades, for the same reasons that they may have a hard time with the constant availability culture in BigLaw.
And those lower grades are not necessarily reflective of their ability to perform at a firm. In a world where notes are typed, keeping up is effectively following dictation — critical to retaining information, and totally unrelated to the skills needed to practice law.
If a lawyer discloses a disability that isn't visible, what happens next?
This is where the fear of stigmatization is real. As someone who lives with an invisible disability, I can confirm that it took me a year to disclose the full extent to my employers.
I didn't want people to think I was less capable, or to not call on me for tasks I would really enjoy. BigLaw lawyers may be afraid of the same thing — not getting prime cases or deals, being underestimated, or being looked at with pity.
Pity is one of the most toxic reactions for disabled lawyers. Even if they need special accommodations, they do not wish to be pitied for the condition they are living with. They worked to the extreme to get through law school and rise to the top. They need your respect.
If a lawyer is visibly disabled, will they be tokenized?
Firms absolutely love to feature a lawyer in a wheelchair or with a cane on their websites. Those lawyers are onto what's happening there, and they are not pleased.
One associate I spoke to who has a visible disability said that he doesn't wish to be "a piece of diversity to show off on the website or at pitches." He otherwise likes his firm, so he stays.
But he feels set apart in ways that make him uncomfortable, and he does not at all like being the face of disability at his firm. I think his feelings are fairly universal.
What can be done?
First, law firms should take a long look at hiring a sharp, capable law student whose grades may not be perfect because law school is not well-designed for disabled students. This would largely be during the on-campus interview process. But the same considerations are applicable to lateral hires.
Second, firms should make sure that they have all different kinds of representation in earnest — and not for show. Disabled lawyers are out there, and one would think there could be more than one per huge BigLaw office. The way to avoid people feeling tokenized is to have greater representation.
If a firm has one visibly disabled lawyer, and that person finds him or herself heavily featured on the website, that's going to feel very uncomfortable. The other benefit of more representation is that firms may find they learn to adjust to the slightly different pacing or way of doing things that works for lawyers with disabilities.
Third, affinity groups are essential. They may need to be cross-office, and even crosscontinent, to get critical mass, given the low percentage of lawyers self-identifying as disabled. But having community can be extremely helpful. And some folks who don't feel comfortable identifying as disabled in the broader firm may feel safe doing so within an affinity group.
Finally, firms need to train lawyers and staff to be sensitive to the challenges that face these extraordinary lawyers — such that they are given the room to thrive. That's how we move in earnest beyond performative, superficial diversification of law firms when it comes to lawyers living with disabilities.
