Disability: firms must review policies to ensure that reasonable adjustments are made for disabled clients and employees

Law firms were warned last week that they need to review their employment policies, practices and procedures to ensure compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA).


Under the DDA, firms have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to enable disabled clients to access their services. They also have a duty not to treat disabled employees less favourably without justification, and to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate them.


Hands On Access, a consultancy that advises companies on accessibility issues, launched a Web site at www.handsonaccess.com last month advising organisations how to be more accessible to deaf and disabled people.


Jonathan Gibbons, director of Hands On Access, said: ‘Firms who have not yet enjoyed the benefits of employing a deaf or disabled employee are most likely to be inaccessible.’


He continued: ‘Reasonable adjustments need not be expensive and a change in attitude is a reasonable adjustment at no cost.’


Michelle Willetts, a commercial property assistant at Brabners Chaffe Street in Liverpool, was born profoundly deaf. She said: ‘The main hurdle was that when applying to firms I had to put down on application forms that I was deaf.’


She started applying for a training contract in her second year at university. Over three years she made about 600 applications and was invited to attend only two interviews. Her second interview was at Blake Lapthorn Linnell, which offered her a training contract.


Ms Willetts said: ‘I was lucky in that there had been a deaf trainee at the firm a couple of years before me, which helped in terms of the interviewers knowing what to expect.’


She said: ‘I have been very lucky with both the firm I trained at and the firm I am at now. My partners in charge at Brabners, for example, decided to give me only clients who like to use e-mail as the predominant means of communication.’


Ruth Fenton has dyslexia and is a paralegal at City firm Herbert Smith. The firm invited a dyslexia specialist to the office to help address her difficulties.


Herbert Smith’s building is accessible to people with mobility difficulties and the firm conducted a survey of its staff to find out more about any disabilities they had and what could be done to assist them.


Ms Fenton will start a training contract with Oxford firm Henmans later this year. She said: ‘They are wheelchair accessible and are looking at getting a Braille print-out machine.’


Ms Fenton said: ‘While some firms are very good, I have come across others that were not helpful or receptive. There is a lack of understanding and firms tend to see only the negatives and none of the positives.’


On 14 April, there is an open day at Herbert Smith for student members of the Group for Solicitors with Disabilities to encourage students with disabilities to apply for a training contract with them. For details, visit: www.gsdnet.org.uk.


Catherine Baksi