How Potential Employers Approach Disability: A Survey of Law Students in Georgia

Authors

  • E. Ann Puckett

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/lawreview.2008.105

Abstract

When I set out to discover how potential employers of law students approach issues of disability in their interviews, I did not expect to find a great deal of published information on the topic. The result was even more sparse than I expected. I only found one somewhat relevant article, a transcript of a roundtable discussion on lawyers with disabilities. The roundtable participants, most of whom had a disability, recounted their own experiences. One attorney told of being asked in a job interview about “how I would get around my disability in the courtroom.” He went on to say, “I did not know that that was not an appropriate question. I think lawyers interviewing an attorney today would not ask a question like that.” Two other attorneys were flatly told that they would not be able to try cases in the courtroom because their disabilities would make them ineffective. One began litigating in his first full-time job and was very successful. The other was sequestered in the banking law division of his law firm because “they didn’t see me as a lawyer
in the courtroom, even though I was good at those kinds of things.” He left the firm to work in the attorney general’s office and has argued more than forty cases in the appellate courts in the past ten years. He said he likes doing something that other lawyers thought he would not be able to do.

Downloads

Published

2008-04-26

How to Cite

Puckett, E. Ann. 2008. “How Potential Employers Approach Disability: A Survey of Law Students in Georgia”. University of Pittsburgh Law Review 69 (3). https://doi.org/10.5195/lawreview.2008.105.

Issue

Section

Articles