By: *Anne Luquette, J.D. Candidate 2022 | March 8, 2021
As we near the anniversary of when COVID-19 first began to affect lawyers and law students across America, I find examples of excellence in the many disabled female lawyers that have made a lasting impact on justice in the world. I would like to honor a few of those women with this post today, International Women’s Day, in hopes that their work and representation can encourage more disabled women that they have the ability to achieve their goals. For photos of these incredible women, please download the full pdf of the blog post.
About Haben
The first Deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School, Haben Girma is a human rights lawyer advancing disability justice…. Haben believes disability is an opportunity for innovation, and she teaches organizations the importance of choosing inclusion.
Haben was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she currently lives. She developed a text-to-braille communication system that created an exciting new way to connect with people. Her memoir takes readers on adventures around the world, including her parents’ homes in Eritrea and Ethiopia, building a school under the scorching Saharan sun, training with a guide dog in New Jersey, climbing an iceberg in Alaska, fighting for blind readers at a courthouse in Vermont, and talking with President Obama at The White House.
Haben Quote
How did you overcome your disability?
“Actually, disability is not something one overcomes. Stories that claim successful people with disabilities overcame their disabilities mislead the public. The barriers exist not in the person, but in the physical, social, and digital environment. People with disabilities and their communities succeed when the community decides to dismantle digital, attitudinal, and physical barriers. My success at school, in the office, and even on the dance floor were facilitated by communities that chose to practice inclusion.”
#2 Deepinder “Deepa” Goraya
About Deepa
She achieved high grades and earned a law degree from the University of Michigan. She is now a staff attorney with the Disability Rights Project of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. She also helped create the ABA Young Lawyers Division’s Disability Rights Committee and was on the board of the National Association of Attorneys with Disabilities.
In October, Goraya moderated an ABA panel, “Persons with Disabilities: Driving Innovation in the Workplace.” The panelists said one in five Americans has a disability, and they discussed how businesses have expanded their recruiting and hiring practices for people with disabilities, who bring unique talents and skills to the fore. Those employees, in turn, help spur new approaches by providing different perspectives and through the adoption of assistive technologies.
But despite these advances, there’s work to be done.
Deepa Quote
“It is important for law firms and judges in courtrooms to still be educated about the obstacles we face and the attitudinal barriers. … We still need an accessible building, a workable case system, wheelchair accessibility and the use of technology in the courtroom.”
#3 Nicole Saunders
About Nicole
Nicole Saunders, an assistant state’s attorney in Duval County, Florida, is paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair. She chairs the YLD’s Disability Rights Committee. Saunders is working on a proposal for a program on how employers can accommodate employees who have disabilities.
Nicole Saunders Quote
“This has become the right path for me. … The areas of advocacy and policy make me very passionate. I wanted to work through the law to help bring about change. … We want to create inclusion in the workplace, and sometimes employers just don’t know where to start.”
#4 Anuradha “Anne” Gwal
About Anne
Anuradha “Anne” Gwal, who has a brain tumor and is partially blind, is an assistant general counsel at Exelon in Newark, Delaware, and past president of the South Asian Bar Association of North America. About 13 years ago, she had two surgeries that resulted in tunnel vision, or partial blindness. She had to decide if she wanted to see or if she wanted to walk based on the surgical options available to her.
Gwal refers to her disability as invisible because no one can immediately identify it. That’s why she openly discusses her condition as part of her leadership roles with the ABA and SABA North America.
Anne Gwal Quote
“Companies, law firms and law schools can find a way to help the party deal with the stigma and help them to acclimate to the company culture…. It’s all about inclusion, and they will improve by leaps and bounds. Once we understand the disability, we can effect change.”
#5 Karla Gilbride
About Karla
*Please see our post about Karla in the “Features” section of the News & Updates tab on our website.*
In addition to arbitration-related work, Karla has pursued appeals in innovative cases seeking legal redress for predatory corporate conduct. She was successful in convincing the Ninth Circuit to reinstate a lawsuit against for-profit companies that partner with jails and prisons to return the cash of people released from incarceration on fee-laden debit cards, so that people who had their money lost to fees can pursue claims under the Electronic Funds Transfer Act and the U.S. Constitution. Karla has also combated the tactic of corporations trying to decapitate class actions by offering individual settlements to the named class representatives, and argued and won a challenge to such a pick-off attempt in the Seventh Circuit in 2015 in a case called Webster v. Bayview Loan Servicing.
Karla is a member of the bar in New York, California and the District of Columbia, as well as several federal district courts, the US Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Circuits. She is also a board member for the National Employment Lawyers Association, and a member of the National Association of Consumer Advocates. Karla graduated with honors from Georgetown Law in 2007 and clerked for Judge Ronald Gould on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She received her undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College with highest honors in 2002 with a major in linguistics and minor in psychology.
Photos and stories from the following sources:
*I am currently a second-year law student at Berkeley Law. I have been diagnosed with OCD, ADHD, PTSD, dyslexia, severe anxiety and PCOS. Please contact me if you would like to speak about my or your own experience in law school.