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Dimensions of Diversity is a podcast from the law firm of Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney highlighting diversity in the workplace. Hosted by Lloyd Freeman, Chief Experience Officer, the podcast will include frank conversations with leaders all across the world of workplace diversity.
Lloyd Freeman (00:05):
I am Lloyd Freeman, and this is Dimensions of Diversity. In today's episode, we're diving deep into the very timely topic of disability rights. It's a movement that champions the dignity, inclusion and equality of people with disabilities. From the landmark legislation that transformed accessibility in our society to the ongoing battles against discrimination and stigma, the journey toward true equality has been both challenging and inspiring. On today's episode, we'll discuss the importance of representation, the power of community, and the steps we can all take to foster a more inclusive world. Whether you're an ally or a person with a disability or simply curious about the movement, I do believe this episode is going to be enlightening for you. Joining me in the conversation is Bob Dinerstein, professor emeritus at American University's Washington College of Law. Bob, welcome to the podcast.
Bob Dinerstein (00:55):
Happy to be here.
Lloyd Freeman (00:57):
I know that I probably sold you short by just giving you one title there in your introduction, because I mean, the list goes on and on. I'm very much so intentional about saying professional emeritus, right, and ensuring that we let folks know that you've got four decades of time that you were a professor. They're all at American, right?
Bob Dinerstein (01:18):
Yes, that's correct.
Lloyd Freeman (01:19):
But also having done more in truly being a trailblazer around disability rights, serving on the President's Committee on people with intellectual disabilities and consulting with the World Health Organization. The list goes on, but I really wanted to know, because most of your work is particularly in this lane, what inspired you to really dedicate your entire career to this area of law?
Bob Dinerstein (01:42):
Well, it's interesting. When you have been doing something for a long time, you look back and things seem to have a certain structure that at the time didn't feel that way. But I would say that there were several things that got me into this area. One is that in law school, I was in a clinical program where we represented clients who were being subject to civil commitment because of their mental illness. This was in Connecticut, and was able to represent those clients and found the cases really interesting and that people really interesting and deserving of rights, which were often not recognized. So you were thrown right in. I was a first year law student, wasn't sure I knew what I was doing, but in the course of that program, really got to have an appreciation for the rights of people with mental disabilities. Then right after law school, I worked for five years in the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division in their special litigation section.
(02:36):
In that position, I was a line attorney or trial attorney representing the government in its suits against various state institutions for people with intellectual disability, psychosocial disability, juvenile delinquents, and I did that for five years. It was really exciting work. A lot of the major cases in the field, the Wyatt case in Alabama, I worked a little bit on the case in Pennsylvania, a case in Puerto Rico. So those were cases where you would see many people locked up in institutions being neglected, not getting treatment or services, who not only were abused and isolated where they were there, they didn't need to be there. They were developing community-based programs, and our effort was to try to get people into those programs with appropriate types of supports. And so that was wonderful work. But after five years and a change in administrations, I was ready to move on to something else.
(03:28):
And that's when I went to American where I actually started working in a criminal clinic. So I didn't start, I always started was teaching a seminar or course in disability rights from the beginning, but started our disability rights clinic in 2005 and did that until the end. But the last thing I'll just say is I have a younger sister with intellectual disability, and we're quite close. She lives in upstate New York, and although I didn't consciously go into the field because of that, it probably wouldn't take a therapist to suggest that maybe there was some kind of connection there. And I've always learned a lot from her, and she sort of keeps me honest on some of these issues when I might think one way about something and she has very different point of view. So that's some version of why I did what I did.
Lloyd Freeman (04:15):
Well, and your work there, it's very important and impactful because I do still think, well, I'll frame it as a question and not my own thoughts. Is there still a stigma associated with disabilities in general? And so if I could double click on that a bit. Oftentimes when you talk about disabilities law or advocacy around people with disabilities, people think of a physical disability. And so do you still find that to be the stigma that's associated with the word a disability? Because I know that you have really laid a lot of your emphasis and specialization around the intellectual and mental disabilities.
Bob Dinerstein (04:56):
Yeah, I think that's true. In fact, I just finished writing a short piece, which is going to be in the next issue of the Human Rights magazine from the a civil rights and social Justice section. And the whole issue is about being marginalized within marginalized communities. And I was asked to write about the situation of people with mental disabilities, and I started off by saying the universal symbol of disability is an outline of someone in a wheelchair, which already conveys the idea that many people think of disability as physical.
Lloyd Freeman (05:25):
Exactly.
Bob Dinerstein (05:26):
And the fact is that there are people with all kinds of disabilities, some of which are not obvious to others. You don't wear a little signs saying you have bipolar disorder or, and other ways. And of course, that's one of the things that's so interesting about disability. It's a mix of people born with a condition, people who wind up getting the condition later in life who respond differently to the level of their involvement. So if you say that somebody has cerebral palsy or is autistic, that doesn't tell you anything about what their capabilities are or what they might want, what their will and preferences might be. And so it's a very, and we like to say somewhat in a cheeky way, disability is a club. You may be asked to join at any time you have a tragic accident, all of a sudden you're now in the club and you almost hope to be because that means you've lived a long life. But there definitely is a lot of stigma, I'd say about disability generally, but particularly about intellectual and psychosocial or mental disability, because a belief of often fueled by misinformation about what folks are capable of doing and also what risks they might present to others.
Lloyd Freeman (06:38):
But I do think though that the more that we have shown a light, if you will, to the fact that what you were just speaking around, there may be individuals who of course are very much so forthcoming around having a particular intellectual or mental disability, but they're still very much so able and capable of performing jobs as any of their counterparts. Do you believe we've turned that corner around the disclosure, and I say that because with the more invisible disabilities, right, it is kind of the power of the individual to then let you know that they're a member of the club because you may not simply because of their photo or when you kind of see them on first impression. So do you think we've turned that corner around really getting behind? All right, I understand the stigma that's associated with it, but I just want to prove to you that I can do whatever you can do.
Bob Dinerstein (07:31):
I would say we are turning, I wouldn't the past tense because I would say there's, and it's for a number of reasons. One is that there are more and more people with, again, conditions that in the past might have excluded them who are now being more open and active about their involvement. So again, I would say in particular, neurodivergent people, for example, have been more active and more out there than maybe they were a generation ago. And that lets people think, oh, here's a lawyer who identifies as neurodivergent and is a great lawyer. And so all of a sudden they start rethinking maybe their assumptions about people. Also, I think people with mental illness, thinking of people with depression or bipolar disorder, some prominent people in recent years have been more open to identifying themselves in that way. And again, it kind of hits you as, oh, wow, I never knew so-and-so had X or Y or Z, and if they've had a positive response to that person, this gives them a sense of, oh, maybe these folks have more capacities than I thought.
(08:33):
But in the end, it's very much a personal decision because we always tell people, for example, if you're applying for a job or as a lawyer or otherwise, you have to get a sense of the lay of the land about whether disclosure is going to be something that's going to be beneficial or neutral or potentially a negative, in which case you may want to show you can do the job first, for example, if you don't have an obvious disability and then disclose it, which some people think is the right way to go versus right up front saying, here I am, this is part of me. It's not all of me, but it's one of my conditions. You all ought to know that. And some of that depends and whether you think you're going to need some kind of accommodation, because if you think you don't need it, maybe it's easier not to disclose. On the other hand, if you think you do, it would be probably prudent to do that. But I will say there is definitely more disability consciousness now and more, and I think over time, more and more people getting more and more comfortable with that as part of the community of people.
Lloyd Freeman (09:33):
And you know what, I would love to hear your thoughts on it, but I think that we owe a lot of that to the courage of the younger generations. I mean, there are so many people, younger and younger who are identifying as having a disability and there's zero shame associated with it. They are, this is who I am and I want to make sure that I am showing up as my authentic self, and I navigate spaces as a hundred percent me all the time. And I can't think back to when I was in high school or any age younger than that where I had anyone who outside of a physical disability was talking about A DHD or talking about autism, et cetera. And so I think there's just a really courageous, what is it, gen Z and Gen Alpha out there that we owe a lot to?
Bob Dinerstein (10:19):
Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, there's been a mantra within the disability movement for a while. Nothing about us without us. And the idea is that if you're going to be enacting policy or laws, we want to be at the table. And that's true at so many levels, and that has been around. But I would say to your point, it's this current generation is kind of more out there about that. And again, doesn't mean everybody feels that way, but more and more people are just saying, I don't want your pity. I don't want you to treat me in a paternalistic way. I am just as entitled to be in this space as you are. And I will demonstrate that through my actual achievements and accomplishments.
Lloyd Freeman (11:01):
Love that. I know that earlier in your answers to a few of the questions you mentioned, the American Bar Association and its Commission on disability rights. For the listeners who may not know necessarily about the work of that commission, can you tell us a bit about it and what is the work that the commission does?
Bob Dinerstein (11:18):
Sure. So the A BA Commission, which it's now called the Commission on Disability Rights, it's had different names over the years, which actually to some extent reflects some of the developments that we've been talking about it, but it's been around for about 50 years. So it's been there for a while and its role as one of the A entities. There's a number of DEI entities within the a b a's about eight or 10 of them, we collectively formed the DEI council. And our job is to do a number of things. One is advocacy and the disability rights area within the A BA, but also externally. So we try to make sure other entities in the A BA are sensitive to disability issues. We propose resolutions to the House of Delegates to enact policy that's promoting people with disability. We also look at, try to look at who people with particularly lawyers and law students with disabilities, especially, I would say mental disabilities has been a very big issue, and looking at ways in which they can be, again, not discriminated against, given opportunities that other people have.
(12:24):
So it's both a kind of a watchdog, if you will, to make sure that, for example, if there's an A program or webinar that it's fully accessible to people that it's one thing to say, of course we are, but to really test it and to make sure that we put out a toolkit. For example, if you're going to put on a program, how do you make sure that the materials you have are accessible to people with hearing disabilities, site disabilities, et cetera, other kinds of disabilities. And we conduct interviews with people with disabilities. I know we'll be talking about the Pledge for Change, which is something, one of our initiatives. We're actually reaching out to neurodivergent lawyers to have them help put together a video for us to tell their stories about things. Again, to try to promote the knowledge about the competence and the qualities of people with disabilities. So it's really across the board. In the past, no longer, we used to put out something called the Mental and Physical Disability Law Reporter, which was a wonderful compendium of disability rights cases. That hasn't been true for a while. And partly it's, I think through online searching and there are other ways of getting that information. But so I'd say it's evolved as time has gone on and as the issues have to some degree changed.
Lloyd Freeman (13:44):
Two things I want to underscore here, the evolution of the work, but also I love the fact that there has been this level of advocacy that the group has been involved in. And I can only imagine that of course a lot of your work has been based on or influenced by the Americans with Disabilities Act. And so everyone knows about the A DA. There's always signage that's posted in everyone's workplace around the country. Are there areas of the, well, first of all, to make sure that our listeners know what the A DA is, if you can give us whatever your 32nd summary is of it, but where do we still need to go with the Americans with Disabilities Act? Is there more that we need to add to it to ensure that it is really encompassing this evolution of how we think about disabilities
Bob Dinerstein (14:34):
In the early days? When you say the A DA, some people thought you were talking about the American Dental Association, Americans with for Democratic Action. I will say the good news now is it probably when you say a DA, I think most people do think that means Americans with Disabilities Act, which is this July will turn 35. So it's been around for a while. I think the A DA has played a really critical role, both substantively in terms of actual legal protections for people with disabilities. They were not as broad as they were prior to the passage of the A DA as well as that a symbolic level that is a sense that people have, Hey, there's a law for people like us because the major civil rights legislation before that, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which dealt with race and ethnicity and later with gender didn't cover disability.
(15:22):
So in that sense, covering such areas as employment, public accommodations, activities and programs of state and local governments, the A DA is really a powerful source. I would say that for the first number of years, its effectiveness within the employment area was limited by some unfortunate court decisions, which later Congress overturned in 2008. So that kind of has sort of stunted some of the growth that one might have expected from the A DA. But a part of the problem is, I would say it's just an issue of law generally, which is law on the books is great, but you have to be able to enforce it. And so enforcement means what is the Justice Department doing? What is the Civil Rights division doing? What are private entities doing? Are you able to get attorney's fees if you're a private attorney? So you can actually afford to bring these cases?
(16:10):
And I think that has worked tolerably well, but for example, from the federal government, it tends to wax or wane depending on what administration is in place. I have certainly concerns about where we are going to go currently. And then I would say there is one title of the aada, a Title three, which is the public accommodations title, the title that would say that a lawyer or a doctor's office has to comport with the A DA that does not provide for damages for people who bring those cases. You can get injunctive relief. That is you can get the court to order or a party to agree to make changes that are needed. But we know that sometimes people will react more when they're in fear of damage actions against them. And so
Lloyd Freeman (16:51):
Of course,
Bob Dinerstein (16:51):
I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. But if you're asking are there tweaks or things you could do, that would be one change. And I think another one I would just to suggest in Title one, that is the employment title. There is through another law limitations on the amount of damage you can get no matter how egregious the action of the entity might be. You can never get more than $300,000, which is obviously not trivial, but is a limit. And you'll get juries who will agree to relief. That's many times that, but then the judge has to reduce it to meet that. And I would say that that might be a place also where larger companies with more capacity might be more likely to comply if there was more possibility of higher level of damages. Those are just a few of the things one might look at.
Lloyd Freeman (17:37):
What about the intersection of the Americans with Disabilities Act, with what your work has been more so around some of the intellectual and mental disabilities. And so when you're talking about that, you think of when you hear the A DA, and you're talking about some of the symbols that are associated with a space that has been modified for individuals with disabilities, you think of a wheelchair ramp or you think of making sure that we have bathroom stalls that are the appropriate size that we can get in a wheelchair, not necessarily at least coming to mind through some of those instinctive. What do I think of when I hear the A DA, do you think of ways in which we are transforming spaces around more so accessibility, right? And you were talking about meetings and websites, et cetera. Has the aada a spoken to that? Have we seen some movement around that?
Bob Dinerstein (18:25):
Yeah, I would say some. For example, if you were working with somebody with intellectual disability, a way to accommodate them might be to make sure that, let's say if you're sending memos to them and they're in your workforce, that you're using plain language so that it's pitched at a level at which they can understand, which I will say also could benefit other employees who don't have any.
Lloyd Freeman (18:45):
Yes, very much so. In
Bob Dinerstein (18:47):
Fact, some of the best kinds of accommodations are ones that are more universal in nature. If you make a doorway wider for a person who's used the wheelchair, you're also making it wider for a person who could afford to lose a few pounds and maybe has trouble getting through a narrow doorway. And the great example of this are curb cuts, for example, which were put in many on sidewalks of many cities in the country to accommodate wheelchair users could go up and down the curb. Well, that's also then available for people who are using strollers with little children who want to not have to kind of bump over a curb, although probably the kids would like the bumping and things like that. So the accommodations that you can make, and one of the really interesting things when you're talking about people with psychosocial or intellectual disability, you're frequently not talking about accommodations that cost much, if anything, right?
(19:38):
As opposed to physical ones. If you're a building to retrofit a building that was inaccessible can be expensive. It doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but for people with non-physical disabilities, maybe the accommodation is allowing someone to take frequent breaks because they need to have that change of scene or allow them to work in a more isolated area so they're not distracted or allow them to sit on a stool because instead of just standing up all the time, and those are things that don't cost anything. And there are also things that I think other people in the workplace often don't resent, don't think the person's getting any kind of special treatment. So those kinds of adjustments about telecommunicating, telecommunicating rather is a perfect example as well. Allowing people to work remotely who might otherwise have difficulty getting into the workplace, which of course during the pandemic we all were doing, at least many of us were. And those are the kinds of things that in the end, an employer or a government agency is entitled to get the product that they have hired you to do. If they've hired you to be a typist, if they hired you to be an attorney, whatever it is, as the person with a disability, you have to meet those standards. The standards are not made less for you, but you may meet them in a different way. And that's where you get reasonable accommodation, which is really an important part of the A DA and other disability statutes.
Lloyd Freeman (21:02):
Bob, you're so spot on because I know that when you're talking about operationalizing d and i, or really how do you implement some of these changes to really reflect in the workplace focusing on the cause and not the particular cohort has often been a way in which we look at this IE, we're not necessarily going to just focus on individuals with a disability and how can we make this note? How can we make our meetings more accessible period for everyone? Because to your point, there are others who could very much so benefit. And so I know that one of the things that we did at our firm is we introduced this meeting checklist and accessibility guide. And so for those individuals who are hosting departmental meetings, you're having a group of people who are on teams or on Zoom, there's just that checklist of just some of the things that maybe don't instinctively come to mind, but what have we put into the calendar invite for individuals to select whether or not they would like for captions to be on, or are we going to send out that summary report after the meeting because people may have they learn at different speeds.
(22:03):
And so things like that I think are so very, very important because to your point, yes, it could help someone who identifies as having a particular disability, but also just for everyone out there. I mean, I know that I definitely watch my Netflix with the captions on just because to your point, I'm like, what was that? I think I missed it. And who doesn't benefit from having a summary of the meeting afterwards? So you're spot on with that. And I think that those are truly some of the best practices that I've seen when you get into the implementation of some of these, I don't want to even call 'em accommodations, but I just think about how to make the workplace just a bit more inclusive and accessible.
Bob Dinerstein (22:40):
And I think that sometimes you'll see cases that have come up where somebody has asked for an accommodation and been resisted by the entity or the business, and you'll just sort of scratch your head and say, why would they object to this? And maybe the problem is we're calling it a reasonable accommodation as if that's some major, major thing as opposed to just maybe being a good employer or a good
Lloyd Freeman (23:02):
Visor or a good leader. There you go, a good supervisor.
Bob Dinerstein (23:05):
And so if you cannot, and that's where also where so much of even the language in the disability area, for example, we talk about educational services, we call that special education or people with children with special needs. And actually, and I'm not the only one who feels this, believes that that use of special is unfortunate because it makes, first of all, it may make people think that they're doing something really out of the ordinary when all they may be doing is really just trying to be creative in how to get material to the attention of someone else. So I think anytime you can make something more universal in its design, you're doing better. And then the second thing I would say is for a lot, and the things you were describing make a lot of sense as sort of a toolkit to make sure your materials accessible, but to really make sure you are working with people with disabilities to make sure that what you think you're doing to make something accessible really works.
(23:54):
Because I know with captioning, especially if it's AI captioning on a Zoom call, quality of that is very, very iffy. And so if you say, oh, we've got captioning, we're covered, well, why don't you check with the person who's relying on it to see whether or not it's making any sense at all? And in fact, the other day I was on a call, I was remote, so it was not, but it was also one where it was captioning and someone was talking about the name of an award, and it was the name of a person on the award, but it was on the caption. It came out as the grunge award, which grunge was nowhere near what the actual name of the person was. So I actually pointed out in a chat, I said, just so you know, the caption is saying the grunge award, and so you'll be careful about this.
(24:40):
So anyway, all of which we can have fun with it, but at a real level, if you are relying on that caption to let you know what's being discussed and it's inaccurate, then you're not really having equal access to the material. And that's a problem. A lot of people with disabilities, they suffer through that. Sometimes they complain, sometimes they don't, shouldn't be on them to have to always be the ones to kind of blow the whistle on it very much. And that's true, of course, there's so many other folks who are within the DEI space. But the fact is that if you really are serious about it, you got to test it and make sure, years ago in our clinic, we were representing someone who liked to go to theater in the DC area and would go to the theater and say, I'm hard of hearing, do you have assistive listening devices? And say, oh, yes, yes we do, but the person who knows where they are is out today or
(25:35):
Here it is, but we didn't check the battery. So if it really mattered to you to make sure it was right, you would know. Everybody would be trained where it is and everybody, and you check the batteries every day and you do all that. And so that's not something that's expensive. That's not something that's hard to do, but it requires you to put yourself in the position of someone who would benefit, is this really going to work for me? I mean, if my life depended on it, have we set it up? And I think that's an ongoing process, which law can be an influence of, but in the end, it's also about human behavior,
Lloyd Freeman (26:06):
Very much so. I do want to talk about lawyers for a bit here because there was a 2022 study and the data showed that more than one in four adults in the United States reported having a disability. So that's about 25% we're saying over 25%. But with a survey of lawyers, only about 1.4% of lawyers in law firms were self-identifying as having a disability. I know we touched a little bit on this earlier around some of the stigma associated with the disclosure, but specifically in the legal profession, you've worked with law students, you've been surrounded by lawyers your entire career. Why is it that you think that the legal profession in particular is so behind on whether or not individuals like to disclose? Because I can't believe that that number out of the representative whole population, which is over 25%, how we only have 1.4% in the legal profession. Why are we so behind?
Bob Dinerstein (27:03):
Yeah, I wish I knew that answer in a quick way and then I would act on it. But I think there's a couple of things that go on. First of all, in general, people with disabilities are significantly underemployed when compared to people of comparable background and experience. So that's across the board, even outside the law profession. But the underemployment is much more stark. And as you've identified in those statistics, I do think in government and in legal services, public interest, the percentage is a little higher, but it's still not so much higher and doesn't fit with, certainly not with a quarter of the population. I think partly, again, if you're thinking about people with mental disability or cognitive disabilities, there is again an ongoing sense of, well, can you really do the job? We represent clients, especially if you're a large law firm, you represent clients with a lot of money at stake, or you might think, well, it's nice to have a person with a disability, but our clients won't accept having someone whose work is not up to speed.
(28:02):
And that's maybe a prejudice before you even determine that the person cannot do the work. And again, no reason that you should assume that. I do think that because maybe of, again, the sort of social and other pressures of working, particularly in private law firms, those disclosures are, I think this is again, beginning to change as we've been discussing, but it's taken a while so that I think that it may well be more people who have, I'm sure there are more people with disabilities who just aren't disclosing because they're just not confident that that information is going to be used in a positive way. But I also think that, I think of this one story, Kareem Dale, who was the first disability advisor to the White House in the Obama years and had low vision. I think he had a little bit of sight, but mostly essentially was blind.
(28:49):
And he reported having worked in a law firm, he was at a conference that I was at, and he reported working in a law firm and he had done some project for a partner, and the partner was very satisfied with it, and he was feeling good, but the partner wouldn't recommend he was an associate and the partner wouldn't recommend him to other partners to give assignments to. And he just thought it was like, well, almost, he worked well for me, but I don't want to risk it for you or kind of vouch for him. And he say after a while with that kind of attitude, he didn't stay with the firm. He just felt it wasn't being supportive. So I do think those kinds of things where people even think they're doing the right thing, but don't follow through with it and maybe suggest that there still is this doubt about whether the person could cut it.
(29:33):
I think just as a lingering type of thing. And even though, again, I think there's been changes happening, it's much slower than it ought to be. And I do think that as we get more and more people more willing to disclose, it's more possible for us to start doing things. So that 1.4%, which is part of was reported in a now survey, I think is so shocking to people that maybe that kind of rouses them to action say, we really need to do better in this area because it's just not acceptable and not only to serve people with disabilities, but also more and more clients are saying, we want to see people in your law firm, in your agency who look like America and have the range of abilities, not just on disability, but on race and gender, et cetera. And we're being challenged with that right now, of course, at the national level. But I do think it's really important to continue to focus on those issues and just say, look, these numbers collectively are unacceptable. We need to figure out ways to get them higher.
Lloyd Freeman (30:31):
And I know that you kind of just gave it to us in a bit of a footnote around the challenges of a national level, but it certainly doesn't help either with some of the media loops because of course, what you're constantly hearing, whether or not you agree with it is a different conversation, but just the message that you're hearing around, oh, if you're an individual with a disability, then you are defacto unqualified or underqualified, or you cannot perform the task assuming that because you are a person who has disclosed that you have a particular, to your point, cognitive or mental intellectual disability, that you don't necessarily have the skills and qualifications, or you haven't gone through all the training and the testing or have the degree, et cetera. And that is just absolutely a falsehood. And so of course, it kind of begs the question, is there room for some additional change? And so I love the fact the A BA has taken on this Pledge for Change initiative. And so before we close out, I want to make sure that you have some time to talk about what the Pledge for Change initiative is and what are some of the goals of the program.
Bob Dinerstein (31:35):
Sure. So going back to, I'm just going to get my notes here. I think 2008 I believe was, or 2009 rather, was when the pledge was created. The idea was to get law firms and ultimately law schools, bar associations, courts to basically agree to a kind of commitment to be diverse with regard to disability and to think about that as an important value. And again, something which I think seems kind of obvious to some, but not obvious to unfortunately to others. And the idea was it was a pledge. It was not, there's no kind of enforcement behind it. It's not like we are going to file lawsuits because you aren't following the pledge. But the idea is to commit yourself rhetorically to inclusiveness with regard to diversity and to its importance. And originally it was really pitched towards private practice, private law, but then was extended to both judges and eventually to law schools. I should say that 2000 to 2001, I was acting dean of our law school during the pandemic. And one of the things I noticed when I gian was to look who had signed the pledge. And at that point, about 30 law schools had done, so there's 200 law schools in the United States. So I made it, since I had access to the Dean's listserv, I made it my mission to try to get that number up. And I did get it up to about a hundred, and I just
(32:54):
Urge deans, but still, that's still 50%. The point is that law schools of all entities should certainly be committed to this. And we got a lot of ones that went forward. And then as should almost any of these other entities. And then the kinds of things that once you've signed the pledge and there's about 400 signatories at this point, then we ask you to think about, well, what are the kinds of things you can do to make the pledge, have content to it, have some real meat on the bones? And as I think we have posted on our website, a series of things that entities can do to make the pledge a reality. And those are a wide range of things. Everything from setting up affinity groups within your law firm for people who have disabilities, data collection for people who are willing to disclose and getting that, certainly making sure that all the materials and programs you put out, whether directly or through third parties are accessible to people.
(33:47):
Those kinds of things. Providing pro bono services to disability rights groups and individuals with disabilities who may have limited access to legal representation signing up, not just our pledge, but there's other kinds of commitments that other groups have put together that again, shows some commitment to this putting on programs like this and others where you kind of get the word out. A lot of things you can do. And I think that the more you do, and of course working with recruiting, being conscious about recruiting, say from law schools, maybe law schools that have student organizations of students with disabilities, of which there are many now, and when you're doing your recruiting, sort of reaching out and making sure that folks in those organizations know that you're open to hiring and qualified people with those disabilities. Those are all a bunch of things that can be done that I think move the needle somewhat and are continuing to do so.
Lloyd Freeman (34:41):
And what I love, Bob, you said at best earlier that there are so many things that you can do in this space that don't cost you anything. Because a lot of people, of course, will start with, oh my gosh, we don't have the budget for it. Or maybe next fiscal year, et cetera, but you just rattled off. I could at least name three or four things in that list that you just mentioned wouldn't cost you anything. Right? I mean, it definitely takes some leadership, it takes some level of innovation, if you will, but a lot of this also, you don't have to invent the wheel. There are tons of resources around. We've done podcast episodes on how to start affinity groups and things like that, so it's out there.
(35:16):
What I do love as we close is the amount of impact that this kind of work will have on real world, those individuals and their experiences. And you talked about how the A BA is really looking to compile those video submissions and really find out about the experiences of some of those diversion et. I know that our firm will definitely submit some because we have some very proud individuals who work with us with cognitive or intellectual disabilities. Are there other ways in which you all are measuring the impact of a program like the Pledge for Change, or is it really just hearing those stories and understanding from people on an individual basis? How did this change everyday life for you because your employer made the space more inclusive?
Bob Dinerstein (36:04):
Yeah, so we have been talking about, we haven't yet developed anything concrete about what are the next steps. So that signing is a necessary but not sufficient stage. And so I think posting, again, letting people know, and not only on our website are those 12 things you can do, but we have posted what lots of law firms, for example, have done already. And you'll see some of the things that I mentioned, but lots of other things too, which is a way to encourage that. I think that I could imagine, for example, we haven't done this yet, but sending out to our signatories just a very short questionnaire, tell us what you're actually doing so that we can get that going. And again, some have done that, but I think law schools just as one group that I know well, haven't really stepped up to say that, but I think we could certainly do that.
(36:50):
I also want to add that as we've been talking about disability, we've increasingly been focusing on the intersectionality of disabilities. So people of color who have disabilities, L-G-B-T-Q, people with disabilities, they are often facing two and three times the kinds of challenges because they occupy these multiple identities. And not every solution is going to be right for every group of people. So our being involved in the DEI center at the ABA is helpful because we're on there with groups that are focused on rights of women rights of racial minorities, immigrants, et cetera. So we could kind bring to bear that perspective of saying, oh, by the way, if you're looking at how women in the legal profession are doing, don't forget about women with disabilities in the legal profession because they may be facing multiple kinds of barriers and the like. So I think a value of something like this, we wouldn't have the power to do anything like full enforcement or de-list somebody who isn't following.
(37:52):
But I think it's really more a question of you should want to be doing it. If you've signed the pledge, don't just make it on a piece of paper, but think about what meaning it might have and how you can use it. And frankly, it could be used in recruiting too. If you're recruiting for people, of course you can might be looking to see, is this the kind of firm I want to work at? A firm that has signed this kind of pledge is saying something as, would a law school be saying something by being willing to put themselves out there in that way?
Lloyd Freeman (38:19):
Tremendous work, Bob. Tremendous impact. And I think that everyone is going to certainly find some nuggets I think, that they can bring back to their individual employers. We're going to put the website in the notes to the episode, but just to close us out, where can individuals go to find more information around the work that your commission is doing with the ABA?
Bob Dinerstein (38:37):
Yeah. So we have go right to our website. If you just type in a commission on disability rights, you'll get there. You'll see there's a variety of things. There's some interviews we've been posting with lawyers and law students with disabilities. Those are just interesting reads. There's the list of every signatory to our pledge. There's the history of the commission. Our commission is just 12 commissioners of which I'm the chair. We have a lot of other entities of the ABA that have liaisons to us. So you can look at any of those folks, and again, would encourage people to reach out to us, either through the staff or through any of the commissioners, just with ever concerns you might have and keep it going. So I think that we're not the only entity out there. I think it is important that we are out there and kind of the ABAs conscience on this, but I do think it's a collective effort that I think many of us are proud to be involved in.
Lloyd Freeman (39:29):
Well, we certainly are proud of it and proud of you for this work. Thank you so much for joining me, Bob.