Deaf Lawyers Slowly Moving Into the Mainstream
Editor: It seems to me I'm seeing more stories about people with
hearing loss moving into occupations in which they were previously
absent or extremely scarce. In the past month I've heard about advances
in medical, police, and firefighting professions. The following story
from the Northern Virginia Resource Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Persons (NVRC) discusses the increasing number of deaf lawyers. Thanks
to NVRC for permission to share this story.
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There are fewer than 100 deaf attorneys nationwide, but 15 years ago
there were fewer than 15 in the profession. Now there are three deaf
judges in the U.S. The numbers are slowly growing, thanks to
technological advances such as e-mail, text pagers, availability of
interpreters and computer-assisted transcription services (CART) and
workplace accommodations required under the Americans with Disabilities
Act. But the fact remains that deaf lawyers are about as common as the
albino buffalo. One reason is that deaf children don't see the law as a
plausible career. A legal career requires strong communication skills,
operates with a unique vocabulary and demands complex interaction but
perhaps the biggest disadvantage is an outright bias against deaf people
by legal employers.
Judge Richard Brown of Wisconsin's Second District Court of Appeals,
who is deaf, says that legal employers have a belief that "deaf
people can't communicate and, therefore, can't reason as well." He
himself faced a bias that he couldn't ever be a trial judge. Using a
CART system during a session as a trial judge, Judge Brown had an
opportunity to show his detractors they were wrong. In fact, Judge Brown
felt that the moment or two it took him to read the electronic
translations gave him more time to formulate a thoughtful response to
the courtroom's action, and therefore, enhanced his ability to be a good
trial judge.
A late-deafened lawyer in California, Kristin Wolf, says that she
faced difficulty getting accommodations in college. The accommodations
situation needs to be smoothed out before we encourage large numbers of
deaf students to study law and attempt to enter the legal profession,
recommends Ms. Wolf. Not all schools are impediments to obtaining a
legal education. For example, Northwestern School of Law at Lewis &
Clark College in Portland, Oregon is known as deaf-friendly.
Judge Clark says the future of deaf children is at stake. He met one
extremely perceptive deaf boy at an oral argument before the appellate
court in Wisconsin. The boy told the judge he hoped to become a janitor
some day. Years later, Judge Brown learned that the boy who planned to
be a janitor became a medical doctor, rather than try to enter the legal
profession.
*Copyright 2000 by Northern Virginia Resource Center for Deaf and
Hard of Hearing Persons, 10363 Democracy Lane, Fairfax, VA 22030.
Contact us: 703-352-9055 V, 703-352-9056 TTY, 703-352-9058 FAX, NVRCinfo@aol.com,
www.NVRC.org. Please share this information but be sure to credit NVRC.*
