Accommodations: Making Practicing Law Easier for Individuals With Disabilities or Other Special Needs
| Jurisdiction | United States,Federal,Georgia |
| Citation | Vol. 28 No. 5 Pg. 0022 |
| Pages | 0022 |
| Publication year | 2023 |
The legal community bears a responsibility to make sure all lawyers have the basic support they need to thrive in their profession.
BY HALIMA H. WHITE
Both at work and in life generally, accommodations make life easier. For those with disabilities, accommodations can be critical to living a full life. In education, the workplace, in most public areas and for many websites, accommodations are legally mandated. In this article, the Georgia Diversity Program explores some of the most common accommodations and how they can help lawyers thrive in their careers.
Even before beginning to practice law, individualized education plans (IEPs) can help law students with disabilities to receive certain accommodations to place them on equal footing with typically abled students. Common IEP accommodations include preferential seating, special lighting or acoustics, closed captioning, testing in small groups or at alternative locations, and unlimited or extended test time. Likewise, there may be bar exam accommodations that remove barriers to entering the legal profession. Such accommodations can help create a more diverse bar to serve both disabled and typically abled clients.
The issue of workplace (and applicant) accommodations recently came to the forefront when then-U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman used Google Meets to read spoken questions by a news reporter. Fetterman, who is recovering from a stroke, apparently experiences auditory disconnect, which is a common aftereffect. His campaign win may have been due to any number of reasons but does highlight the public's confidence in people being able to do important jobs even if they need accommodations to do so effectively.
The Job Accommodation Network (JAN) provides free, expert and confidential technical assistance to both employees and employers regarding workplace accommodations and disability employment issues. Resources available on JAN's website include, "Employers' Practical Guide to Reasonable Accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act" and pandemic-related resources. There are also practical tips for requesting disability accommodations and navigating the interactive process at your workplace.
There are accommodations that can help lawyers thrive. Accommodations may be requested (or simply provided if the...
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