ABA Releases Report on Best Practices in Employing Lawyers with Disabilities

WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 19, 2009 – Based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 22,295,000 Americans with disabilities are of working age; however, only 36.9 percent were employed, compared to the 79.7 percent of the non-disabled.

Acknowledging this disparity, the American Bar Association Commission on Mental and Physical Disabilities hosted the “Second ABA National Conference on the Employment of Lawyers with Disabilities” in June and are now releasing a report, based on the conference, as a resource tool for legal employers and lawyers with disabilities.

The report provides guidance as to the best practices for employment of lawyers with disabilities as well as mentoring, retaining and promoting lawyers with disabilities. Additionally, there is guidance and insight as to how lawyers and law students with disabilities can attain employment.

The report is available online for free and it urges people to sign the Commission’s disability diversity pledge, which encourages legal employers—including law firms and corporate counsels—to implement and promote disability diversity in the legal profession.

Additionally, written perspective from lawyers with disabilities—including Isaac J. Lidsky, recent law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justices Sandra Day O’Connor (retired) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Kareem A. Dale, associate director, White House Office of Public Engagement and special assistant for Disability Policy to President Obama—are included in the report.

To view the full report go to: http://www.abanet.org/disability/conferences/reports.shtml

With nearly 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world.  As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.

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