Readily Accessible Legal Services: Working with Clients with Disabilities

Jillian MacLeod: Hi everyone. My name is Jillian MacLeod. I use she/her pronouns and I am a staff attorney at Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, and I am pleased to be here today with my colleague Ayesha Lewis. And we will be presenting today on readily accessible legal services, how to include and communicate with people with disabilities.

As a short visual description, I’m a white woman in my late 20s with short dark brown hair and bangs. I’m wearing a stripy collared shirt and silver hoop earrings. I have a blurred background and my office lights just went off, so I have to turn this on and I’ll pass it to Ayesha to introduce herself.

Ayesha Lewis: Afternoon. My name is Ayesha Elaine Lewis. And I’m glad to be here, joining you today for this training. My visual description is I’m an African-American woman in her late 30s, wearing a gray scarf and a yellow shirt. And I have dark brown hair.

Jillian MacLeod: So first we’ll go through a couple of housekeeping reminders. This is a zoom webinar. So all attendees are muted and cameras are turned off. If there’s enough time, we’ll take questions at the end. We also have live captioning available. So, to see captions you can select ‘show captions’ in the zoom meeting control bar to enable captions and to view the full transcript. There’s a dropdown menu to choose either English or Spanish, or to get captions in your web browser. You can go to this link, which is dropped in the chat. Bit dot ly forward slash DREDF slash cart C. A. R. T. And thank you, Drew, for dropping that in the chat. And please use the Q&A to reach out to the presenters. Or you can reach out to Drew McKay by email. D. R. E. W. M. C. K. A. Y at dredf.org with any questions or additional comments.

So thank you for going through the housekeeping with us. As an introduction to start off, we are Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. DREDF was founded as a unique alliance between people with disabilities and parents of children with disabilities, and has long been part of the disability rights movement. We are also a national law and policy center dedicated to protecting and advancing the disability, civil, advancing disability, civil and human rights.

We believe that disability rights are civil rights and human rights. And our vision, our drive, is a just world where all people live full and independent lives free of discrimination. One of the ways that we work towards this vision and advance our mission is working to educate lawyers, legislators, policymakers, and self-advocates on issues affecting the rights of people with disabilities.

So we’ll do a quick overview of some of the topics we’re going to cover today. So we’ll start with an introduction. We’ll go through some disability basics including what is disability under the ADA a definition of ableism, the importance of accommodations and readily accessible practices, and what the differences between those two things, and then the ideas of capacity and self-determination.

Next, we’ll talk about figuring out accommodations with your clients. And we’ll talk about readily accessible legal practices. And these can include things like effective communication and delivering information, setting up spaces in an accessible way, interacting with clients in an accessible way, and working with supporters. And at the end, we will have time for questions. Next slide please.

So it’s important when we’re talking about people with disabilities to understand who we are talking about. So this slide is a non-exhaustive list of many different conditions and diagnoses that can accompany and encompass disability under the law. This can include things like mental health and psychiatric disabilities like PTSD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and OCD can also include things like intellectual and developmental disabilities like autism, ADHD, neurodiversity, Down’s syndrome, cerebral palsy, and learning disabilities.

It can include things like physical and mobility disabilities, as well as sensory disabilities like deafness and blindness, neurological disabilities like dementia, Alzheimer’s and traumatic brain injuries, and chronic conditions like asthma, COPD, diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney disease, a history of cancer, and long Covid. So it’s important to know that the definition of disability under the ADA, which we will review, was designed to be extremely broad and many people with common conditions that folks don’t often think of as disability like anxiety, OCD, diabetes, high blood pressure, all of these conditions qualify for protection under the ADA.

So it’s important that when you’re thinking about who clients with disabilities are, you are thinking broadly because whether or not a person identifies as a person with a disability personally, they may be entitled to accommodations and effective communication under the ADA.

So what is a disability under the Ada? Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, an individual with a disability is someone who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, and a major life activity can include things like eating, sleeping, walking.

So seeing, hearing, working, concentrating, thinking or communicating. So this is obviously a long list of potential ways that a person could qualify as having a disability under the ADA. It also includes people with a history or a record of an impairment. So, for example, maybe someone who previously had cancer. And a person who is perceived by others as having an impairment, which can be shown by an adverse action against them based on the perception that they are disability, that they have a disability.

And it’s important when we talk about disability to also think about the lens through which we’re feeling disability. So a preferred kind of way of thinking about disability in the disability community is the social model of disability. Which is the idea that disability is not a divergence from what is, quote, normal, but is instead an aspect of a person’s identity.

And it is part of the diversity of human experience. And so disability results from a mismatch between a disabled person and their environment. So that can include their physical environment, the social environment or the economic environment that they live in that may make the world inaccessible to them. And other kinds of models of disability that has long informed perception of disability in culture include the Medical Model and Charity Model of disability, which is something that needs to be fixed or cured or pitied.

And obviously these are not, preferred ways of viewing disability in the disability community.

And when we talk about disability with our clients, it’s also important to note, that there are different ways of identifying as disabled. So some people prefer person-first language. So that might be a person with an intellectual disability or disability first language.

So that might include a blind person or a deaf person. And preferences vary in the disability community. So when you are speaking to a client with a disability, you can ask them which type of language they prefer. And it’s also important to know that you shouldn’t assume that just because you’re aware of a condition that might qualify for protection under the ADA, that the client necessarily identifies as disabled themselves.

So as we reviewed earlier, you know, disability is very broad. It can include people with anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, diabetes. And some of these conditions are things that aren’t commonly considered to be disability disabilities, in broader culture. And so, you should really mirror the client’s language in the way that they’re talking about their condition or diagnosis.

And so if they’re not referring to that as a disability, you can, mirror their language. Another really critical aspect of understanding the disability experience and serving clients with disabilities is understanding exactly what ableism is and how it affects people with disabilities lives. So this definition is a working definition by Ta Leila Lewis, a multilingual abolitionist artist, educator, writer, movement strategist, and community lawyer. Who is and just an absolutely amazing part of the disability community.

And so their definition is a system of assigning value to people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normality, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence and fitness. These constructed ideas are deeply rooted in eugenics, anti-blackness, misogyny, colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism. This systemic oppression leads to people and society determining people’s value based on their culture, age, language, appearance, religion, birth or living place, their health or wellness in quotations and or their ability to satisfactorily reproduce, excel in quotations and behave in quotations.

So you do not have to be disabled to experience ableism. And to Leila gave us permission to use this definition, and wanted to note that we should emphasize that the definition is meant to be a point of departure and not the destination. And the idea is to encourage people to think deeply and discuss ableism in their own contexts, communities and countries.

And as well that over a decade of work went into this offering and that black and indigenous people have a perspective and experience that can neither be fully appreciated nor understood by non-Black and indigenous people. And it’s important to name that in relation to this definition.

Also, it’s important to know that many of our clients have experienced trauma and their lives and trauma is part of a cycle that disables people, leads to poverty, a kind of a cycle that is self-reinforcing. So disability can lead to poverty because of things like the disability tax, the high cost of health care. Poverty can lead to disability because, the the trauma associated with living under difficult conditions.

And then trauma itself also reinforces disability and can lead to exacerbation of existing disabilities or creation of new disabilities.

Next we’re going to discuss the importance of accessibility and accommodations.

Ayesha Lewis: So accessibility and accommodations are matters of justice. What do we mean when we discuss access and increasing accessibility. Accessibility exists because certain groups of people were or are not considered or are intentionally excluded. This comes from, the social model of disability, where the problem isn’t the person with the disability, it’s the problem of a poor fit between society and the needs of that person.

Increasing accessibility means proactively considering disability related needs and ensuring that services and information are readily accessible for everyone, including both disabled and non disabled individuals.

What is an accommodation? Accommodations are adjustments or changes to practices which allow someone to be included and participate equally. Reasonable accommodations or reasonable modifications are required under federal, state and sometimes local disability laws. Accommodation is more of a reactive approach to increasing access than, proactively planning for readily accessible services. However, it also because it is reactive to a particular client’s needs, it allows you to base the way things are tailored to the particular needs of, your client or prospective client.

What does readily accessible mean? Spaces and practices are readily accessible when they are accessible by default to people with a wide range of disabilities, regardless of whether they disclose their disability. And these readily accessible practices will benefit both disabled and non-disabled people. And so

One method of providing accessible services could be, you just have a standard office.

You haven’t really thought about what people with disabilities might need. And then if you have a client or potential client who comes in with a disability, at that point, you react to their particular needs and see what you can reasonably do to make things accessible by making things readily accessible. At the outset, though, makes it more likely that you’ll be able to accommodate people.

And the proactive approach gives you more runway to figure out what makes sense and what is possible when you don’t have the time pressure of an immediate client that needs immediate service.

Next, we’re going to discuss capacity and self-determination. Capacity is a spectrum. It’s not a yes or no question. It can change with the context, topic or emotion or physical state. For example, some people may have capacity to make legal decisions without effort and without understanding. Every aspect of the law or the legal procedure. That’s why they come to lawyers.

We’re the ones who help them figure it out. But folks can still have capacity to be represented in a litigation capacity is changeable and can be strengthened. A lot of the practices be discussed for readily accessible lawyering can strengthen capacity to allow people to be represented directly in litigation. That can include plain language. Reasonable accommodations.

Such as changing the time of day and the format duration, location of meeting breaks, or repetition of ideas. Another, way to strengthen capacity is to have supported decision making. And when you’re assessing whether a client or potential client has capacity, to be represented, or if they would need potentially a guardian ad litem, etc., you want to assess that capacity with their supports in place.

If they have capacity, as long as their supports are there, that means they have capacity to be represented.

Another concept that we’d like to explore is self-determination and dignity of risk. Self-Determination is an important issue when representing clients with disabilities, legal and social systems, unfortunately, can take away decision making rights from people with disabilities. Others perceived as normal are more allowed to make their own decisions. Historically, that has meant things like reproductive freedom being taken away.

Forced sterilization, folks being put into conservatorship and not having autonomy over their finances or whether or not they’re on birth control. It’s also meant limitations in where people can live.

Having autonomy to direct the kind of care you receive, the services and life choices actually make can increase feelings of competency, autonomy, and connectedness that leads to better outcomes generally for people with disabilities.

And it’s also very tied to the concept of dignity of risk. Dignity of risk requires respect for the rights of disabled people to make their own decisions, to participate in a broad range of activities that they want to engage in, even if those activities have risk or seem ill-advised to other people. For example, someone who is able-bodied might decide to go skydiving.

And perhaps many people would think that that is, a silly way to spend one’s time. But people are allowed to do it. If folks think that a disabled person who, wants to go camping in the woods is too dangerous because they’re in the woods, that’s their life. And honoring their dignity of risk allows people to make decisions, even if it, isn’t the kind of choice you might make.

So that they could direct their own life.

Next, we are going to cover figuring out accommodations.

When you’re talking to clients about potential accommodations, you want to ask about them in a simple, concrete, non-judgmental manner. So you could try starting with the general question do you have any access or communication needs that I should know about? If you recognize that the client is struggling with particular tasks, you can ask more targeted questions like ‘is there anything I can do to help you understand this information?’

Or you could lead with a potential accommodation, saying something like, ‘sometimes people have trouble keeping track of dates and times. Would it help if we call you the day before your meeting?’ Be ready to ask more detailed questions and come up with potential alternatives. How does this accommodation help you? Are there common accommodations that usually don’t work for you?

Listen to what the person says. They often know what works. Sometimes people feel uncomfortable having these conversations, but if you approach it in a, you know, open, non-judgmental way and focus on the client’s needs rather than saying things that might imply that they are less than, it can really go a long way. Folks are practical.

They’re here for a service. And if you’re working in good faith to make sure they can access your service, people are much less likely to take offense or not be open to sharing.

Some people may not know what would help. And so in most cases you, should be ready to brainstorm potential solutions. Some people, become disabled later in life. There are a lot of eating-related disabilities that may make someone have new needs that they’ve never had accommodated before. Also, some clients who have had particularly lead disadvantage lives may not have before benefited from accommodation.

So you can look to accommodations that have been used for certain disabilities and other contexts. So the job accommodation network lists a bunch of different accommodations that might be used in employment contexts. And you could start there for ideas of potential functional limitations that could be caused by conditions and ways that those limitations can be terminated.

You also want to check in with your client about whether accommodations are going to be needed in the court or for resolving an issue in the underlying legal manner. For example, if you have a client with disabilities and they’re in a child welfare case, perhaps part of the difficulty that they are, encountering is due to the lack of accommodation by the child welfare agency.

So as you figure out what accommodations they need in your legal services, that might also help you understand what accommodations they need requested from child welfare. Similarly, if you’re going to courts and you know that your client has certain needs, you can make those requests in advance. You’ll have had a track record of what works, and then be better able to represent your client in legal proceedings.

Okay, so now we’re turning to readily accessible legal services. So we’ve been discussing it in a general way. But now we’re going to drill down on what readily accessible legal services are. When you’re providing readily accessible legal services, you want to make your default practices accessible for a wide range of clients, regardless of whether you know a client has a disability. And what does that look like? You want to use plain language?

Avoid legal fees in your language forms and resources. You want to make the implicit explicit. Don’t assume background knowledge. They’re not lawyers. Often. Often they haven’t gone to law school and specifying things can help you build rapport with your clients, and also help make sure that clients understand what you’re talking about. You can approach clients with humility, curiosity, attentiveness, and compassion.

Have flexibility and responsiveness. Different clients can have different needs. And, we can anticipate that for different clients might have – or, sorry, the same client might have different needs at different times. So, being aware of that and being, you know, able to switch things as needed can go a long way to making your, services accessible.

It’s also good to have trauma awareness. A lot of people come to a lawyer when things are going very poorly in some aspect of their lives, and a lot of clients also have background histories of trauma that may impact the way that they receive services. So being aware of trauma, and tailoring services, to reduce that can be really helpful.

Be ready to implement common accommodations, whether that’s having a service that you can call for assaults. Or large print flier handouts available upon request. Being ready for some of the most common things makes it less of a lift in the moment when a client needs something. Also, it may take some practice to work with clients to ask them what supports that they need.

Because, you know, it’s just a conversation that some folks don’t have experience having, and that could include people with disabilities. Who maybe do identify as disabled or have a history of working really hard to mask and hide their disability needs.

Practicing with colleagues ahead of time. Can make the process much more smooth.

There are some additional considerations when making services readily accessible for people with mental disabilities. Mental disabilities such as psychiatric, intellectual, cognitive, attention, and learning disabilities can be less visible, and it may be less apparent what accommodations are needed. It’s also often less disclosed due to fear or past experiences of stigma related to these disabilities. So you want to ask a person what would be helpful. And your demeanor and openness can really make a big difference here.

Jillian MacLeod: And next we’ll talk about the responsibility to communicate effectively with your client. And how to deliver information in a way that ensures you are effectively communicating.

So effective communication means communication that is as effective as communication with non-disabled people. It allows a person with a disability to communicate with, receive and understand information from, and convey information to others.

So it’s communication that is effective in both ways. It allows people to convey information and to receive and understand information. And disability rights laws like the Ada require you to communicate effectively with client clients with disabilities. So one way that you can ensure that you’re communicating effectively is to ask clients before a meeting, or at your first point of contact with them, if they have any communication needs, or use any communication tools to help them talk to other people.

And communicating effectively might require providing auxiliary aids and services. So some examples of these are qualified interpreters. So this can be in person or through video remote interpreting. Although if you are having a meeting in person it’s important to note that often in person ASL interpretation is preferred for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Because ASL is a three-dimensional language. Additionally, you may your client may require an interpreting team that includes one deaf interpreter and one hearing ASL interpreter. So in this circumstance, the deaf interpreter signs directly to the deaf person and the hearing interpreter translates what the deaf interpreter is interpreting to the hearing person and says that out loud.

So, this type of communication may be necessary if you have a client who uses nonstandard ASL or if ASL is not their first sign language. So you may need an interpreting team with two interpreters. Additionally, you might need to provide real time captioning, particularly for video meetings. Real-time captioning, of course, is preferred. But sometimes automatic automated captions are okay, but it’s important to check with the person you are working with because sometimes automatic captions are not very accurate.

Also, assistive listening devices and systems like pocket talkers or speech-to-text. And these services must be offered free of charge. Additionally, you should take affirmative steps to make these services accessible to people. So, you should go out of your way to ensure that you have policies in place to provide these, communication aids to people, and you should always consult with the person with a disability to determine the best way to ensure effective communication for them, and not assume that you know what type of communication will work for them.

And when you’re working with interpreters, a couple of things to know around arranging interpreters. So you should have contracts with interpreting services in place and policies that help guide your staff as to how to book an interpreter and work with an interpreter. Like I said, if you’re meeting in person, an in-person interpreter is generally preferred, and some clients may need an interpreting team with two interpreters.

And for meetings that are heavy on legal procedure and legalese, it may be necessary to book a legal interpreter. Although this isn’t necessary for every meeting with your client. If you’re able to talk about maybe, for example, factual situations or things that are less in the weeds of legal procedure you don’t need to necessarily book a legal interpreter.

Additionally, you should ensure that the client can see you and the interpreter at the same time. So if you are in person, the interpreter should – generally, it’s good for them to be next to you and the client across from you so that the client can see you both at the same time. And you should speak directly to the client, not to the interpreter.

You should also speak slowly and pause every couple of sentences to allow the interpreter to catch up. And it’s also important to pause to allow the client to ask questions, because, with interpreting, there’s a slight delay in the information that’s being provided to the client. And so if you never pause to see if they have any questions you may just – they may never get a chance, to ask a question. And you may keep speaking.

And an important thing to note is that effective communication applies to people with all types of disabilities, not just people who are deaf or blind or people with sensory disabilities. It can apply to people with disabilities that affect their communication. So someone who’s, speech may be difficult to understand.

It can also apply to people who may have difficulty processing information, or may process information differently. And so just wanted to clarify that effective communication apply applies to people with many different types of disabilities. And so you should make sure that your information is easy for many types of people to understand. Ideally, you should utilize plain language at a fourth grade level.

It can be helpful also to have a notepad handy to utilize. Visual aids, if that is how your client best understands information. You can also have different options for color. So maybe you’re going through an outline of the meeting with them. And you can highlight different areas of the meeting or different types of information in different colors.

You can also give information one piece at a time, and also check with them and check their understanding to see if they’re following. So you can go slowly, and ask them to repeat back the information that you just shared with them to ensure that they’re understanding. And if you’re not, you should adjust the way you’re speaking or adjust the way you’re delivering the information.

So this slide has an image of a courtroom – an illustrated image of a courtroom. And it’s an example of utilizing a visual aid. So in the image, as a quick description, it shows the judge, the clerk of the court, a witness, the court reporter, defense counsel, the prosecutor, and then the accused. In this circumstance, that looks like it’s a criminal case.

And then the public seating area. So you can basically look at this visual aid with your client to explain where they will be sitting, where the judge will be sitting. You know, where they might have to walk to go speak as a witness. You can also explain to them the rules of the court. So, how they shouldn’t speak out of turn.

And this might be helpful to help them prepare for a circumstance where they are in court which can be a really overwhelming situation that not many people have experience with.

Also a helpful tool for plain language is the Hemingway app. So something you can do is you can copy and paste your writing into the app and it highlights your writing in a color coded way.

So where your writing might be more difficult to understand it will highlight as red or yellow.

It can help you make your language more plain language. If you’re writing emails to a client and you’re really used to using legalese and fancy words, you can try to make your language more understandable by using this app. Although I will note, I’m not totally sure about the privacy of the Hemingway app. Like, whether they collect that information that you put in. So you should just be aware of privilege and trying not to share details about your client.

Ayesha Lewis: I wrote in the chat, but I just wanted to add a couple of notes. When you’re effectively communicating with the use of color, you don’t want to rely only on color. In case you have a client who has color blindness.

And also the helpful illustration that Jillian showed can also help folks understand the roles of the different people in the court process. And so, visual aids can be really powerful when you’re, working to have default accessible practices. You should meet your clients in an accessible location. Therefore, you want to consider the availability and accessibility of parking, transit, bathrooms, elevators, and whether or not service animals and needed emotional support animals can be accommodated in the space. It’s much harder, to handle accommodations if you have your offices or you meet people in accessible places.

And so starting with an accessible location at the outset just makes things much easier. And it also, frankly, communicates to your clients the importance of, accessibility. If you are located and trying to meet people in a building without an elevator, that can fit a powered wheelchair. It’s it may silently communicate that you didn’t think about disabled clients and that they weren’t as valued for you.

Again, we all sort of come from our situations with a lifetime of potential trauma, difficulty and discrimination. And so taking the affirmative step to have an accessible space is very it’s often very appreciated by clients. It’s good to minimize sensory overload. You want to avoid bright lights, loud areas and strong smells. For example, you might want a scent free building.

Or maybe your colleagues have agreed to have a set free workplace within the meeting area. And if your default location for meeting clients is not accessible, you can consider meeting them in an alternative, accessible location or via another accessible format.

Many individuals with mental disabilities report difficulties in sensory processing. So setting up the space in an accommodative way can really help with that. You can also, you know, provide a variety of chair sizes and styles. Some people like their chairs have wheels that people really don’t like that. Some people may be larger, and more comfortable in a bigger chair. You might have a little person who benefits from a chair that’s closer to the floor. it’s good to make, space for someone to bring in a wheelchair. You also want to have enough space for us. One or more support persons that might need to be in the meeting, or a support animal to be near.

You can provide water, snacks. Three tools. Those can be particularly helpful in, like, intense moments. There are lots of different ones that different folks like. And, you can try to reschedule appointments. If a person cannot focus due to disabilities. And I spoke to this a little bit before about how, disability can be difficult to talk about, particularly mental disability. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of emphasizing to clients when I need to raise the issue, but it’s about my personal responsibility as their attorney to provide accessible services. It’s not indictment on their ability and their worthiness. Next slide. Okay. Some additional considerations when meeting with unhoused people. Many individuals experiencing homelessness have the additional stress of ensuring that their belongings are safe and secure.

Try to think of ways to reduce the stress. If they need to go to a meeting at your office or at court. You can provide a secure, safe space where people can temporarily store their belongings. Or you can make Zoom or Google Meet options available, which you should be doing anyway because you know, accessibility. Next slide. When you’re, having phone or video meetings, it can pose challenges for some clients.

Some steps to make them more accessible include making a plan before the phone call to support access needs. Provide plain language questions and or an agenda ahead of time. Remind clients to try to find a quiet, comfortable space to chat. Schedule meetings during times when clients have better access to quiet space. So if, you know, someone is unhoused or someone just doesn’t have a quiet space at a certain time of day at a block in a meeting when things work better for them?

You can ask whether, they would like to supporter. And you may be able to use, video calls or zoom calls to allow for easier time communication. But be aware, some clients may feel uncomfortable about being on camera due to anxiety, pain, or disability related grooming challenges. It may take them hours to get camera ready. So being  open to meeting with camera off can be helpful. Next slide.

Jillian MacLeod: Next we’ll talk a little bit about basic guidelines for interacting with clients.

So overall I’m sure this is stuff that many of you know. But it’s important to express compassion and empathy because as I mentioned earlier, you know, when clients are coming to us, they’re not exactly having a great time. They’re going through something difficult. They need help accessing their benefits.

So it’s always important to express compassion and empathy and be humble. So you can ask how you can support them. How do you best remember things with text reminders? Help. Also, as we mentioned earlier, don’t dispute the person’s understanding of their disability or situation and meet people where they are. So you can mirror their language about their disability or the situation that they’re going through.

You can ask open ended questions to identify things that matter to them. So their values, important decision making points and their preferences. And again, self-identification as disabled is not required to make use of or be entitled to disability rights protections. So if you’re working with a client, again, who doesn’t right, doesn’t identify as a person with a disability.

But you know that, in your interactions with them, it’s helpful to use the teach back method, because they may not always understand the first time that you say a piece of information. You should still be, you know, communicating effectively with them whether or not they identify as a person with a disability.

Also, in terms of setting up a meeting, a few things to note are that it can be helpful to include a time cushion. So for an interview that typically lasts 30 minutes, you might need an hour. You might need an hour to check understanding with the client, to explain things more, more slowly. To interact with an interpreter.

To take breaks if they’re feeling overwhelmed. Or just need some time to relax. It can also be helpful to level set at the beginning of the meeting. So in plain language, you can say what main questions you would like answered. So you can say something like, today I want to talk to you about, your experience with blank.

And I want to understand whether this person, discriminated against you, when they fired you from your job. Sorry. Coming up with an example on this part is hard. But you can also offer a schedule or agenda to show them how long you plan to talk about each item. It can also be helpful for them to follow along with what’s happening.

And know what to expect. Again, ask about accommodations and be ready to employ them. So it’s possible that, they may utilize accommodations that they didn’t identify before the meeting.

You can also offer breaks ahead of time and let clients know that they can ask for pauses. Or you can read schedule if things become too overwhelming. And you can let a client know that you plan to ask them to explain things in their own words at various points. So, that they’re expecting that.

In terms of asking questions, and sharing information, it’s important to mirror the individual’s level of communication where possible. So if they talk in shorter sentences, or pause frequently, you can build that into how you ask questions, or explain concepts. That said, it’s really important when working with people with disabilities that you’re not using baby talk, so you’re not talking down to them. It’s really important that you’re mirroring the way that they best communicate. But that does not mean speaking to them, in a baby voice.

Additionally, when you ask for more information, you could give examples of what information is helpful because sometimes with really open ended questions, it can be hard for people to understand exactly what you’re asking for, or what information might be helpful to answer your question. So an example is your client might be attempting to secure services through the regional center as an adult, and you need to gather information about their qualified disability for the application process.

So you can ask, do you have any records or history of a disability? So for example, some clients have an IEP record from school or records from SSI that diagnosed them with certain disabilities.

And again when asking questions, you can ask the client to repeat your question or an understanding of where you are in the agenda, in their own words.

Additionally, you can repeat back client responses that are relevant to your question. So an example of that is thank you for that information. You said you remember being in smaller classrooms as a kid. You also said you remember someone assigned only to help you. I can explain later why that – what you shared – is important.

And finally we’ll talk a little bit about supporters who have a really important role, in serving people with disabilities. So what role can supporters play? Supporters are trusted adults who are chosen by disabled clients, and they can assist clients with logistics like scheduling, scheduling meetings and arranging transportation. They can help clients communicate. So, for example, they might be able to speak a client’s words if their speech is difficult to understand for people who don’t know them.

They can also help clients understand legal concepts or other complex concepts because they know how that person best receives information. But again, it’s important to remember that the client is the client, not this border. Next slide please.

And supported decision-making can be a really useful tool for you to use in your representation of disabled clients. Supported decision-making is an individualized arrangement where a disabled adult chooses one or more people they trust to help them understand, communicate, make, or act on their own choices. This can be a formal agreement that is written or an informal agreement. So there’s no form that must be filled out for a supported decision-making arrangement to be valid.

And it can strengthen capacity and avoid the need for a conservator in decision-making. And California recognizes supported decision-making as a less restrictive alternative to conservatorship under the law. So a few important things to know around supporters and the duty of confidentiality and attorney client privilege. So, California Business and Professions Code section 6608. Generally is the rule around the duty of confidentiality in the attorney client relationship. And under rule 1.6, for the California Rules of Professional Conduct. A lawyer may get informed consent from a client, in order to reveal confidential information. So if a supporter needs to be involved in a confidential, communication between an attorney and, a person with a disability, you just need to get informed consent with the client to do that.

So something that we try to do is that when we have the client sign our plain language retainer for the representation, we have a section that talks about their supporter and asks for them to give consent to the supporter being involved in their representation. And we also have a section of the form where the supporter signs the form, around their understanding of their role in the representation. So it’s something along the lines of like, ‘I understand that I’m not the client and I’m here to support the client.’

Additionally, it’s important to note, that attorney client privilege may also be implicated. That said, attorney client privilege will not be waived. Under California evidence code exclusions nine five to and 954, because supporters may be present to further the interests of the client in the consultation, and supporters may be people whom disclosure is reasonably necessary for communicating with the client or accomplishing the purposes of the consultation.

And so under Law Revision Commission comments, to California Evidence Code section 952, some examples of people who may be necessary for the interest of the client in the consultation, include a spouse or a parent who is present to further the interests that were client. And also, there’s a comment to ABA model rule 1.1414 that says that when it’s necessary to assist in the representation, presence of family members or other supporters generally does not affect privilege. And this is a persuasive authority.

And now we have a good amount of time for questions. So if anyone has questions please put them in the Q&A box.

Also, feel free to reach out to us, if you have any questions, and look out for further trainings by DREDF. We can go ahead and answer this question and then end the presentation.

But I see a question, about how can we impart the importance of such practices to other lawyers who might be resistant?

Ayesha Lewis: That’s an excellent question. One of the things that’s important to highlight is that the definition for disability is incredibly broad. And by some estimates, that includes 1 in 4 people in America. So if you’re an attorney, it’s very likely you will have disabled clients and disability rights laws require that folks provide accessible services, reasonable accommodations.

And so this is just part of good practice as an attorney. We also do trainings, with ethics credits regularly around this issue as well. Also, most people become attorneys because they want to help their clients achieve their goals and being able to navigate. Many clients you’re likely to encounter with disabilities in a way that allows you to properly serve them really accords with the goal of being a good practicing attorney.

Jillian MacLeod: All righty. Well, I think we can end this presentation. Thank you all so much for attending. We hope that it was helpful. And please fill out the survey as soon as you hop off about the presentation, whether it was helpful for you.

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