A population maligned

I take exception to William F. Crowell’s letter (September). Mr. Crowell maligns disabled attorneys as deadbeats who sit around collecting disability benefits while bitching about their inability to find work. (Unless I am mistaken, the CBJ article to which he responds does not indicate whether the disabled attorneys surveyed were collecting, or even eligible for, disability benefits. Mr. Crowell apparently assumes that any disabled person must be collecting benefits — an assumption which I can assure you is untrue.)

He further mistakenly believes that one cannot be both disabled and capable of working as an attorney. To follow this line of reasoning, one would have to accept the ludicrous notion that no one who uses a wheelchair, who is blind or deaf, or who has a limiting illness can work as an attorney. In truth, being saddled with a disability neither diminishes one’s intellect nor lessens one’s ability to contribute to the legal profession.

I have a medical condition which does not allow me to work full time. As such, I am “disabled.” I am not unable — or unwilling — to work. To the contrary, I work as much as I can, although contract work is the only type of employment readily available to me as a disabled attorney. If given the chance, I would trade any amount of money to live an illness-free life. Unfortunately, that is not a choice that I have been given. I strongly resent Mr. Crowell’s intimation that I (or anyone similarly situated) somehow am attempting to bilk the system. 

Christine M. Dabrowski
Spring Valley

What it’s like to be a disabled attorney

If William Crowell’s beliefs are a common misconception, it shows the compelling need for State Bar involvement on behalf of disabled attorneys. The typical attorney who practices law takes the most common tasks for granted — being able to talk to clients over the phone, research cases, walk to the library or court, and hear the judge and opposing counsel while there. Because most law firms are set up so that time must be spent as efficiently as possible, disabled attorneys are often at a tremendous disadvantage their first few years in practice. New equipment may need to be set up, a CRC 989.3 form may need to be approved, and so on; law firms don’t want to deal with this extra work.

Moreover, the billable-hour and efficiency dynamic causes most non-top-10 percent disabled attorneys who graduate from school to enter solo practice or part-time work to learn the law because many firms refuse to hire disabled attorneys, knowing of the additional “start-up costs.” Indeed, even small law firms expect lawyers to hit the ground running, meaning that a new attorney may need to learn the law on his/her own. This problem may be true for all lawyers, but it hits disabled lawyers hard, forcing many of them into solo practice from Day 1, rather than after a few years of experience (and client interaction).

If we intend the American legal profession to be something other than a gift from affluent or well-connected parents to their children, we need to explore ways to educate all new attorneys effectively, including free MCLE, effective mentoring programs, an ethics opinion mandating communication by e-mail rather than phone if one attorney is hearing-impaired, and law schools that teach the practice of law. 

Matthew Mehdi Rafat
Campbell

Responsibility and diversity

This is in response to the recent letter blaming the lack of diverse attorneys on unequal education, discrimination and prejudice. Ridiculous. I am a Mexican female (the daughter of migrant farm workers) and I grew up in a poor area. I went to a school where the entire student body was Mexican. My sister and brother are doctors, my other brother is an engineer and I am a lawyer.

We probably did have “unequal education and prejudice” but so what? We succeeded because my parents would not accept failure. We will have more minority representation in the bar when more minority parents become actively involved in their children’s education and those children take responsibility for their future.

Don’t waste my dues on a “task force” that will never solve the true reason for the lack of diversity, namely, the lack of personal responsibility.

Karen Feld
San Bernardino

An apology owed

As a proud alumna of San Francisco Law School, an evening school more than 100 years old, I take issue with Eric Sedlak’s comments (September) denigrating the intelligence and industriousness of those who did not attend a “national” law school. 

 I am also a reasonably intelligent cum laude graduate of Brandeis University, a “national” educational institution. Many of my fellow students graduated from similarly ranked colleges and universities. Most of my classmates in law school were not only highly intelligent, but extremely hardworking, putting themselves through evening law school while working full time. San Francisco law school gave those of us who had to pay our own way an opportunity to use our skills and intelligence to become part of a rewarding profession helpful to our fellow human being, an opportunity which would not have existed otherwise for many if not most of us.

Eric Sedlak should learn the facts before he makes the type of comments contained in his letter. He owes graduates of all “non-national” schools an apology.

Leslie M.B. Cole
Los Angeles