Grania Langdon-Down gauges how rife discrimination against disabled lawyers is in the legal profession and talks to lawyers who have succeeded against the odds

Before barrister John Horan suffered a stroke, he was earning £100,000 a year and being instructed by 70 solicitors. Now he earns a third of that and only four of those solicitors still instruct him.

An employment and discrimination law specialist, he says: ‘I have no trouble getting briefs as long as I am prepared to do them for free.’

He has now launched a pressure group called the Barristers and Advocates Disabled Society (BADS), which he is determined will be ‘proactive and vocal’ in raising issues of discrimination faced by lawyers, judges, expert witnesses and clients with disabilities (see (2006) Gazette, 31 August, 5).

Mr Horan, of Cloisters Chambers in London, says: ‘I am not a rebel. I don’t want to rock the boat for the sake of it but the profession is not doing enough. The Bar Council and Law Society generally do a good job for their members, but they have to make a choice – either to work on behalf of their economically successful members and let their less economically successful members down, or work with groups like BADS to find a way forward.’

Sue Maynard Campbell, chairwoman of the Group for Solicitors with Disabilities (GSD), which has about 300 members, welcomes the new group. ‘The more that can be done to chip away at people’s pre-conceived assumptions and stereotypes, and to show that we are capable of doing a good job – and that clients who can’t walk through the door are as valuable as those that can – the better.’

Law Society President Fiona Woolf was among those attending BADS’ video-linked launch in London and Manchester last week. She says: ‘We want to help disabled solicitors develop their careers as part of our commitment to playing a leading role in the elimination of discrimination and the promotion of equality and diversity.’ She says the GSD, which was established in 1989, has championed the abilities and aspirations of solicitors and those wishing to enter the profession, who are disabled. 

There are few statistics on the number of lawyers who are disabled. According to the Society, ‘you can ask about race and gender but you can’t ask about disabilities’. However, the regulator does require all training providers to collect data to ensure they do not discriminate in any way. In the 2005/06 intake at the College of Law, for example, 211 of the 5,175 students had some form of disability.

Admissions manager Claire Wade explains: ‘We ask students on their application form if they have any particular requirements so we can offer all the support they may need – whether it is extra time in exams, enlarged manuals, someone to work with them or special software.’

The Law Society’s Regulation Directorate deals with discrimination complaints against solicitors. Its 2005 report says that, of the 94 discrimination allegations, 22 involved disability, although no formal findings were made in relation to them. Complaints involved alleged discrimination on grounds of deafness, reading difficulties, post-stroke difficulties, dyslexia, short-term memory loss and partial sight. One trainee reported being bullied because of her epilepsy.

Bar Council chairman Stephen Hockman QC said recently that the bar has achieved much in promoting diversity and equality but that is ‘no reason not to achieve more’. The council started collecting data on barristers with disabilities for the first time last year, through a questionnaire to chambers. But few filled them in and the final tally was an unrealistic 20. A spokesman says: ‘We are looking at better ways of finding more complete information, one of which is at entry level.’

However, the bar has had more success with information on access to chambers, which will be included for the first time in the 2007 Bar Directory. Meanwhile, the Courts Service has invested £32 million in disabled access to courts and tribunals. A spokeswoman says that, while courts are compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, they are still checking how many involve a ‘managed solution’ because the building is listed or the alteration costs would be disproportionate.

There are no figures on how many judges are disabled. Sir John Wall, secretary of the GSD and of the Society of Visually Impaired Lawyers, was the first blind person in modern times to be appointed a Deputy High Court Master, a position he held for 12 years until he retired aged 72 in 2002.

Sir John, who went blind at the age of eight, qualified as a solicitor in 1954. It took 400 applications and 53 interviews before he was offered a job. He was turned down on his first attempt in the 1970s to join the judiciary because of his blindness, but he applied successfully in 1990. A clerk sat next to him to read documents and write down orders, while he made his own Braille copy of relevant sections of the White Book.

‘The way people with disabilities are treated always comes behind people from ethnic minorities and women. As a blind person, you have to work harder than a sighted person – if you do something stupid, people say “stupid blind man”, which is irritating,’ he says.

However, there have been improvements with computerisation and developments in technology, which, he says, have helped lawyers with disabilities cope with the physical demands of the job.

The GSD is currently setting up a legal network on disability to help lawyers learn more about disability and improve their practice in relation to disabled people. Working in conjunction with disability consultancy Equal Ability CIC, it is being piloted in Yorkshire next month, when Nick O’Brien, legal director of the Disability Rights Commission, will talk about their legal strategy at the launch.

Ms Maynard Campbell says they are also considering how the Carter review will affect disabled lawyers and clients. ‘If there are fewer firms doing legal aid, then there are going to be fewer training contracts, and it is already a lot harder for disabled students to get a traineeship than it is for able-bodied students. Very often, they have to do it by a back door, part-time, doing you a favour-type route, which is appalling. We will be talking to firms and to organisations with in-house legal departments about offering work experience so people can show on their CVs that they can cope.’

One student was 23 when she broke her neck falling down stairs while sleepwalking, leaving her paralysed from her armpits down with only limited use of her arms and hands. Her determination in graduating with a first-class honours law degree from the Open University nine years later led to her winning a scholarship last year from the Law Society’s diversity access scheme. This enabled her to start a part-time legal practice course (LPC) at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge.

Now in her second year, she is despondent that she has yet to obtain an interview for a training contract, despite many applications. She does not refer to her disability on her CV, except for a reference to the diversity scholarship. ‘I want to be measured against the other candidates on my academic ability and experience rather than my disability. While it could make me stand out for having achieved the results I have, it could also reflect more negatively in such a competitive world.’

She knows it is tough for all students. But one gripe she does have is with the ‘bad manners’ of the many regional and smaller firms which do not respond to applications, even with a standard rejection letter.

Nihar Punj, profoundly deaf since birth, also received a Law Society diversity scholarship last year and has finished her LPC at BPP Law School. Set on joining a City firm, the 23-year-old has had a more positive experience in finding a training contract. ‘Most firms were very open about my hearing impairment and did not view it as an obstacle,’ she reports. She is taking up a training contract with Herbert Smith in September 2007, to allow time for travelling.

‘I do feel that the legal profession is gradually becoming more enlightened about disability issues. The fact that Herbert Smith has offered me a training contract demonstrates that City firms are accepting of disabilities as long as you have drive and determination to succeed.’

Grania Langdon-Down is a freelance journalist