Disability accommodations are designed to help create a level playing field for those
who have a physical or mental disability.
Without a reasonable accommodation, a law student might fail or not do well in law school.
Today I will discuss the two types of disabilities, accommodations a law school might offer,
challenges in getting an accommodation, confidentiality concerns, and the reasons why you might request
an accommodation.
Hello lawlings, this is Professor Beau Baez.
Accommodating students with disabilities is much more common today than it was when I
attended law school.
What I want to share with you are some general principles and approaches because your law
school might have more or less resources to accommodate a disability.
Also, two law schools might address the same disability with two radically different accommodations.
Let me begin by discussing why you should get an accommodation if you have a disability.
Before law school, many with a disability were able to succeed without the need for
an accommodation, and that’s great.
But law school is different.
For example, before law school you might have been able to succeed by spending more time
than your classmates preparing for class.
The game is different now.
A typical law student spends 40 to 60 hours a week on their studies, which means the coping
strategies that worked for someone in the past may not work during law school.
Also, you need to understand that first year grades are very important.
If you decide to take a wait and see approach, you might end up with lower grades during
your first year.
This might keep you out of law review, moot court, and limit your future employment opportunities.
You must be proactive and get an accommodation right from the start of your legal education.
Depending on the disability, law schools have different accommodations available.
Keep in mind though that law schools will decide, after reviewing your accommodation application,
what they are willing or able to provide.
When selecting a law school, this should be part of your strategy as some law schools
will be more accommodating than others.
One common accommodation for some disabilities is more time on an exam.
Suppose that a student has severe arthritis in their hands and their fingers cramp after writing for too long.
The law school might grant that student extra time to complete an exam.
Those students do not need to disclose their disabilities to their professors.
One student told me about his disability that he had in his eyes.
He would get these random floaters that would make it difficult for him to read.
He was given extra time to complete his exams.
If you get extra time, it works like this: on a three hour exam, the law school might
provide a student with time and a half for all thier exams.
So instead of getting three hours to complete the exam, they will receive four and a half hours.
Instead of more time on an exam, the law school might determine
that what a student needs is a stop the clock break during the exam.
So during a three hour timed exam, a proctor will come in periodically, stop the clock, and
the student to leave the room for a break, and then restart the clock when the student returns.
Some students need to take an exam by themselves, to avoid sight or sound
distractions related to their accommodations.
The administration might use a spare office in the law school building for the exam, or
there might be a university office somewhere on campus that handles all accommodations.
For students that can’t write quickly or can’t follow the classroom conversation
quickly enough, the law school might provide a paid note taker.
The note taker could be someone currently taking the course, a law student not taking
the course, or just some student in another discipline who's being paid to come in and take notes.
One student who received this accommodation told me that the paid notetakers notes were often
not very useful.
Last year, I was told there would be a paid note taker in my class, and I volunteered
to provide my notes to that student.
I suspect that many law professors might be unwilling to share their class notes, but
it can’t hurt to ask.
Instead of a paid notetaker, a student might receive permission to record the class.
Most law professors ban class recordings for fear that students won’t talk freely.
To address this concern, a law school might require the student to destroy the recording
within some period of time after the class is over.
Maybe a month or two weeks, or something like that.
Some law professors ban all technology from the classrooms, including laptops.
But depending on the disability, some accommodated students might be able to use their laptops
to take notes.
This means that an accommodated student will not be able to keep their accommodation confidential
as they might be the only student in the class allowed to use a laptop during the class sessions.
To address this concern, a few law schools are now prohibiting professors from banning laptops
in their classrooms.
Quizzes. I’ve seen law schools handle quizzes in different ways.
Some law schools will not provide any accommodations for assessments that are worth less than a
certain percentage of your overall grade.
I give pop-quizzes, which means part of the assessment approach is not to provide students
with any notice that the quiz is being given to them.
A couple of years ago one of my students needed an accommodation, so this is how the law school
accommodated that student.
My quiz was a five minute quiz that I gave during class, but the student needed twenty minutes to complete the quiz.
This could not be accommodated during the class session, and the student was also trying to maintain their anonymity.
After some internal discussions, this is what we did.
On the days I was going to provide a quiz, I got the quiz to the accommodation officer by noon.
On each class day, the student had to show up to that accommodation officer 30 minutes before class
and discover if there was a quiz—if there was, he or she had to take it then.
They then came to class, me being none the wiser as to who they were.
Now, here was the tricky part.
My teaching assistant graded the quizzes, so he had to know who the student was because
he graded the quizzes during class time.
After class, he would go to the accommodation officer, pick up the quiz, grade it.
So while the teaching assistant knew who had the accommodation, I never found out who he or she was.
Some accommodation requests are denied because they are not reasonable, or
would create an undue administrative or financial burden on the law school.
I recall one law school denying a request for a latex-free environment, even though
she could have died from the slightest exposure to latex.
Specifically, this student needed the law school to verify that latex had not been used
in the classroom for 48 hours before class.
The problem is that latex is used in many everyday products, including erasers and balloons.
There really wasn’t a realistic means for the law school to grant this request.
To get an accommodation, the first step is to get evidence of the disability.
For some people, such as somebody born, blindness in an eye or they're deaf,
they probably have a lifetime of records establishing the disability.
The law school will have some sort of process to approve the accommodation, but that takes time.
You will generally need evidence from a qualified professional, and a recent diagnosis.
This means spending several thousands of dollars for a diagnosis that might not be accepted
by the law school.
And while there are some low-cost providers out there they have very long waiting lists.
So the challenge is to determine what documentation the law school needs, getting it to them,
getting them to understand the type of accommodation you really need, and then waiting for the answer.
There might be some back and forth, on this process, which is why you need to start the process
before law school begins.
Keep in mind that the law school may have a short window during the semester during which
you can request an accommodation.
If you miss the application window, you have to wait another semester.
Also, the law school may require you to reapply every semester for the same accommodation.
This may take you some time, especially when they want you to send them the same documentation again.
People with physical disabilities will find it easier to get an accommodation
versus those with mental disabilities.
This is because physical disabilities are often diagnosed early in life.
In my case, I was born blind in one eye and I knew about my disability ever since I was a young child.
So when you have a well-established medical record it's easier.
Not that I ever requested an accommodation for my eye.
Accommodations will rarely be perfect.
For example, every door in the law school will not have a button that automatically opens
it for every student that needs that accommodation.
So while a student might be able to use one bathroom in the entire building, it may not be
the most convenient bathroom.
Or there might be a small classroom, and a button might not be available, so the student might have to
wait for a classmate to let them in.
Mental disabilities, or cognitive impairments, are the ones that students
struggle the most in getting appropriate accommodations.
For example, some law students seek an accommodation from being called on in class, even though
this is standard practice in legal education.
These requests are routinely denied because being called up in class is part of the legal education.
Some students might have a letter from a qualified medical professional requesting double time
on an exam, and the law school only grants time and a half, or instead grants the student a stop the clock break.
Keep in mind that the legal profession is skeptical of mental disabilities.
The concern is that a student might receive an unfair advantage on an exam.
Given that law school is a high stakes environment, imagine that someone with enough money
could hire a psychologist to fake a diagnosis for the purpose of getting more time on an exam.
Now I suspect this is rare, and that people who suffer are requesting disabilities really do have those disabilities.
Complete confidentiality of disabilities is preferred, but not always possible.
You generally don’t need to tell your professor about your disability.
But, depending on your disability, you may want to share that with your law professor.
Let me give you an example, how this would have helped me as a professor some years ago.
I really want to create a sense of professionalism in the classroom,
so I discourage frequent bathroom breaks.
Well one year, early in my teaching career, I noticed one student was getting up all the time, going to the bathroom, coming back.
Not just one day, but she doing it for several weeks in a row.
So I decided to call this student out publicly, and you can guess what happened.
After class she came to me, explained to me that she had Chron’s Syndrome, a condition that
requires people to get up frequently and rush to the bathroom.
I just thought she having too much coffee before class, but she had a legitimate medical condition,
that required her to get up and go to the bathroom.
From that point on, I no longer call people out publicly--I learned my lesson.
Now I will send a private email to that student, just to see if there's something going on.
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