Michael S. Greco
Past President, American Bar Association
Remarks Delivered at the
Second National Conference on the Employment of Lawyers with Disabilities
Marriott Wardman Park Hotel
Washington, D.C.
June 16, 2009
I am pleased to be participating in this, the Second National Conference on the
Employment of Lawyers with Disabilities. The First National Conference, co-sponsored by the
ABA and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and which I hosted, took
place in May 2006, here in Washington. How quickly three years can pass by.
The First Conference had two purposes: (1) to facilitate the hiring of lawyers with
disabilities; and (2) to help implement Goal IX, now Goal 3, of the ABA – promoting the full
participation of lawyers with disabilities in the legal profession. The intention was for the
Conference to provide opportunities for law students and lawyers with disabilities, and disability
organizations, to develop relationships with law firms, corporations, government agencies and
other legal employers who, by attending the Conference, would demonstrate their commitment to
hiring lawyers with disabilities.
We learned a number of things from that Conference, and its important Final Report,
which can be accessed on the ABA website at www.abanet.org/disability.
We learned, for example, that despite the large number of persons with disabilities in the
US general population, estimated to be as many as 54 million, there is a paucity of lawyers with
disabilities, and that the reasons for this phenomenon are varied and complex.
We learned – more accurately, we confirmed what we already knew – that lack of
opportunity is an overriding reason for such paucity, that because reasonable accommodations
often are unavailable or inadequate, and because having a disability creates economic hardship,
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high school students with disabilities are deterred from attending college, and fewer still are able
to complete graduate school.
We learned that those who do make it through law school encounter further obstacles:
discrimination in hiring, salary disparities, and inadequate accommodations in law offices and
courthouses.
What progress has been made since the 1st National Conference in making more legal
employment opportunities available to persons with disabilities? The answer is “some, but not
nearly enough.” And that is why we are all here today, attending this important Second
National Conference.
One outcome of the First National Conference was adoption by the ABA House of
Delegates at the 2007 Annual Meeting of a Resolution urging that
“Websites provided by lawyers, judges, law students, and other individuals or
entities associated with the legal profession … be created and maintained
in an accessible manner which is compatible with reasonable technologies
… that permit individuals with visual, hearing, manual and other disabilities to
gain meaningful access to those websites.”
In today’s technology-driven world, it is clear that making legal websites and the information on
them fully accessible is one of the most important aspects of disability integration.
The ABA Commission has made good progress with its mentor program. There are now
more than 200 mentors and mentees participating, and more than 75 successful mentor-mentee
relationships. This program needs to be expanded significantly. The Commission’s “Disability
Discussion Docket,” which began with mentor program participants, has grown to nearly 400
participants, from fewer than 200 a year ago.
One of the main obstacles lawyers with disabilities face is that there is no effective,
comprehensive effort being made to identify lawyers with disabilities, an effort further
complicated by the fact that many lawyers with non-apparent disabilities do not yet feel
comfortable in revealing their status. The ABA Commission over the years has tried, but the
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resources needed to accomplish this important task are substantial. Those resources need to be
found.
I commend ABA President Tommy Wells, the ABA Commission on Mental and Physical
Disability Law, the Association of Corporate Counsel and the Minority Corporate Counsel
Association for convening this important Second National Conference. And I applaud each of
you for being here, and for what you will do after we leave here.
This conference has three stated objectives: (1) encouraging law firms and corporations
to take a pledge to promote diversity and inclusion within the workplace, with an emphasis on
hiring and retaining lawyers with disabilities; (2) developing best practices for promoting
disability diversity and inclusion; and (3) identifying legal employers and work settings that can
serve as models for the legal profession.
I suggest a fourth objective to you, consideration of what might be termed a “two-way
international perspective:”
On one hand: What are the comparative experiences from other countries as relating to
the theme of this Conference? Are there countries from which good practices and policies can be
learned? Which countries, and what good practices and policies?
On the other hand: What good practices and policies in the US can have a positive
influence on other countries? What role can the ABA and its Conference co-sponsors play in
this regard?
In particular, I cite the importance of ratifying the recently adopted U.N. Convention on
the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which has been signed by 159 countries and ratified by
38 countries – but not yet by the United States.
We have a lot of ground to cover today – and a great deal of work to do following this
Conference. The subject of this first panel – “Making the Pledge to Hire Lawyers with
Disabilities” -- is a good place to start.
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I close by repeating something I said in a short article entitled “Forgotten Colleagues”
that I wrote following the 1st National Conference, and which is included in your Conference
materials:
No qualified lawyer – or member of any profession – should be denied opportunity to
work solely because of a disability. “Equal Opportunity for All” is a cherished
principle in America. But effort is needed to make that eloquent promise a reality.
If the legal profession is to reflect the true diversity of our nation – and benefit from
the entire pool of available talent – we must include lawyers with disabilities in the same
way that the profession has included women and persons of color.
Our profession truly will be diverse, and lawyers with and without disabilities will be
considered equal before the Bar, only when you and I, and our hiring colleagues across
the land, make the commitment to hire and retain lawyers with disabilities.
It is past time for us to make that commitment.
Thanks for your attention. Let’s get to work.
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