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Article
August 2003 page 55
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY:
Lawyers with disabilities seek access and
opportunity
By Matt Laffan
Matt Laffan is a solicitor with the Office
of the Director of Public Prosecution.
IT IS NO SURPRISE THAT PEOPLE
WITH disabilities are attracted to the law
as a career choice. People from minority
groups and civil rights activists, whether
from a racial or religious perspective,
have always turned to the law as a means
of breaking down the prejudices of society
and creating opportunities for themselves
as equals. Lawyers with disabilities are
no different to these other agitators for
change, seeking a shift in perceptions and
expectations through their participation.
However, newly-qualified lawyers
with disabilities are finding it very difficult
to gain full-time employment. In NSW there
are 18,434 solicitors and a further 12,000
or so law students. Among them there are
roughly 650 lawyers and law students with
disabilities, but the full-time employment
success rate for these colleagues is well
below the average.
For lawyers with disabilities,
pride in attaining a degree becomes overshadowed
by the difficulty in becoming a fully employed
practising lawyer, which is mainly due to
the reluctance of law firms to employ them.
As intakes of fresh graduates are accepted
by the big and small end of town, those
who have disabilities are left on the outside
and their untapped potential is wasted.
It is for this reason that
the Law Society of NSW is giving support
to Employers Making a Difference (EMAD).
EMAD is an organisation supported and led
by employers who have reaped the benefits
of employing people with a disability. It
promotes and supports businesses that encourage
people with a disability as employees, customers
and suppliers. The Law Society and EMAD
are combining to facilitate a shift in opportunity
for lawyers with disabilities in the recruitment
process. The law firms which employ lawyers
with disabilities will benefit, as they
will gain highly skilled, determined and
loyal recruits. The face of these firm will
also reflect the face of society, a far
more appealing representation of what clients
recognise as a professional team.
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How to make a difference
For further information on Employers
Making a Difference or to register
your firm's support, contact Megan
Brand, NSW Business Manager for EMAD,
phone 9411 5055 or email megan.brand@emad.asn.au,
internet www.emad.asn.au.
The Law Society's Equal Opportunity
Committee is gathering information
from practitioners or firms who currently
employ or have previously employed
solicitors with disabilities. If you
can assist, please contact Maryanne
Plastiras at the Law Society 170 Phillip
Street, Sydney 2000, DX 362 Sydney,
phone 9926 0212 fax 9231 5809, email
map@lawsoc nsw.asn.au.
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Access
Professor Ron McCallum, Dean
of the Faculty of Law at the University
of Sydney, knows more than most what difficulties
lawyers with disabilities face. Blind since
birth, McCallum has been involved in the
law all his adult life. In a mindscape that
relies upon tactile markings and the sounds
and smells of the world around him, his
personal success in black-letter law has
a meaning all of its own. With a brilliant
ability to recall, a powerful sense of what
the law is about and an unrelenting conviction
that hard work is his friend, he has risen
to the top of his academic field on his
own terms. He personifies the qualities
that our profession admires. As the Dean
of Law, McCallum has the responsibility
of ensuring that his faculty delivers the
very best to its students, those with and
without a disability.
"I think that there is a real
challenge for universities to be accommodating
for people with a disability. Universities
have come a long way, but I feel that they
need to keep up to the mark, particularly
with blind and visually-impaired students
in regard to providing material in a form
that is accessible to the individual. We
all need to do more work around this," he
told me.
The next obvious step is the
employment of lawyers once their studies
are completed, and it is something of which
McCallum is keenly aware. "Lawyers and law
students with disabilities who manage to
get a position in the workforce have often
done so because of a mix of good luck, perseverance
and a matter of having known someone through
some nebulous association that has made
the difference." Thus the well-worn adage
'that it is not what you know, but who you
know' is especially true for lawyers with
disabilities seeking to break into the workforce.
McCallum notes: "The law firm
Blake Dawson Waldron sponsored my chair
and they were very accommodating to me,
and for three years they employed me for
three days a week as a special counsel,
but I was a well-practised lawyer".
In other words, he was well-known,
which is not unusual for someone offered
a university chair. Unfortunately, it is
this need to be 'known' before being given
the most fundamental opportunity to work
which is the perplexing problem faced by
fresh graduates with disabilities. Most
of us, of course, have suffered the tortuous
wait as prospective employers have weighed
up our academic record and personal references
with others in response to a job advertisement.
But lawyers with a disability have the double
difficulty of having to prove they can do
even more than just satisfy all the desired
criteria in order to overcome the hesitation
that employers have to give them a start.
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Providing excellent service to
people with a disability
By DONNA BAIN and JULIA HARAKSIN
Donna Bain is the Manager of Policy
and Research at the Law Society of
NSW; Julia Haraksin is the Coordinator,
Disability Strategic Plan, in the
NSW Attorney General's Department.
[ Good morning. Can
you read this? ]
If you have very good eyesight -
or a magnifying glass - you may be
able to read the line between the
square brackets above. (It says 'Good
morning. Can you read this?').
If you can't read it, and don't have
a magnifying glass, you may have pondered
the scratchy line for a while, wondered
what interesting information you might
have missed, been frustrated that
you were not able to read it and moved
on to do something else, but worried
you may have missed something important.
Every day, similar and much greater
challenges are faced by people with
a disability trying to participate
in our legal system as clients, defendants,
plaintiffs, witnesses, jurors and
fellow legal professionals. Recognising
that access is a key objective of
the legal system, the NSW Attorney
General's Department is implementing
a rolling Disability Strategic Plan.
The tenth anniversary of the Disability
Discrimination Act this year provides
a timely reminder of the profession's
obligations to support a discrimination-free
legal system.
All legal practitioners should be
aware of their clients' needs and
work to ensure that their clients
secure the best possible access to
the legal system.
Court access solutions
Some of the access solutions that
are available in the courts include:
- pre-hearing orientation of the
court room;
- formatting documents in alternative
formats (for example, in large print
or email for people with a vision
impairment);
- breaks and drinks of water; and
- accessible premises.
For those with a hearing disability,
the following services may be available:
- infra-red system for the courtroom;
- Auslan interpreters;
- real-time translation (captioning);
and
- TTYs (teletypewriters).
Those with speech impairments may
require the use of their own augmented
speech equipment or just patience
from the listener.
Checklist for practitioners
Legal practitioners who are working
with people with a disability must
ensure they:
- ask their client what they need
and what their preferences are;
- contact the clerk of the court
well in advance of the hearing date
to make the arrangements;
- make time to familiarise their
client with the court layout;
- arrange to have the user test
the equipment in situ; and
- brief the presiding judicial officer
about the use of any disability-related
equipment or adjustments.
Recent example
A young woman with cerebral palsy
who was the victim of assault, recently
gave evidence in a NSW court of the
attack on her. Unable to speak, the
young woman used a light writer (a
small computer with a synthesised
voice which speaks the words typed
in by the user) to give her evidence.
A conviction was secured.
Conclusion
Effective representation for people
with disabilities is the responsibility
of all those working in the legal
system and there is a wealth of tools,
information and assistance available
to legal practitioners who want to
ensure their clients with a disability
are afforded a fair go.
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Mentoring program
Recently, a few law firms
have become involved in Willing and Able
Mentoring (WAM), a program designed to assist
students with disabilities prepare for the
workplace by providing a mentor to deliver
first-hand experience to students as they
study. Ruth Higgins, a graduate solicitor,
and Carmel Harrington, a human resources
manager, from Gilbert & Tobin speak highly
of the program. They mentored Joel, a law
student from UTS who is hearing impaired.
As Higgins noted, "Law is
a daunting profession, irrespective of disability.
So I found Joel's focus and determination
inspiring, and thought it impressive that
he would choose a career in law, which could
be perceived as presenting barriers to people
with a hearing loss".
Higgins remarked that the
WAM objective was to provide Joel with "a
realistic impression of daily life in a
firm, while keeping him engaged and excited
about the field.".
Equally, Gilbert and Tobin
learned the way in which Joel could play
a vibrant contribution to the firm as a
lawyer in his own right. Any preconceptions
that Joel might have a limited role to play
because of his disability were quickly allayed.
Tony Greenwood, a solicitor
from Ebsworth and Ebsworth, another WAM
participant, astutely recognises the fact
that "one of the main challenges for students
and new lawyers with a disability would
be getting their foot in the door of a law
firm and then proving ability to a future
employer. An employer may, rightly or wrongly,
take their disability into consideration
and they would have to prove (like any other
applicant) that they are qualified and competent
for the position".
Greenwood's frank assessment
seems to be an accurate representation of
what is occurring in the recruitment process.
A lawyer's disability is considered as an
impediment to that person being employed
before they even reach the interview process.
In other words, the prospective employee's
qualifications and competence are often
secondary to the issue raised by the candidate's
declaration that they have a disability.
Higgins is right to observe
that "the challenges facing each individual
will vary with the nature of their disability,
their attitude towards it and the receptiveness
of the institutions they approach".
Help for those awkward
questions
It is this receptiveness quality
that needs to change, but it requires only
a subtle shift. Higgins justifiably asserts:
"I can't imagine that many people would
have a problem with disability. Generally,
I think the most important objective is
relaxed communication between the parties:
even well-intentioned concerns - for example,
how best to make someone feel comfortable
- may only serve to accentuate any discomfort.
Both parties should be open to ways to attend
to any relevant needs.
"Part of this may involve
anticipating perceived difficulties, for
example that individualised attention may
detract from an ability to keep abreast
of hectic periods in the office or urgent
deadlines. For a person with hearing loss
to start upon a legal career already attests
to heightened motivation, so it lies with
the firm to meet this enthusiasm." And this
is where the association between the participating
law firm and EMAD will assist.
Employers Making a Difference
provides both employer and employee with
the means by which to understand and communicate
what their needs are beyond the normal hiring
relationship. Special workplace needs are
pinpointed and the fears that some employers
might have about infrastructure costs and
liabilities are explained accurately. The
difficult-to-ask questions are answered
simply so that what might be perceived as
being a risk is properly looked at as an
investment.
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