The principal purpose of Chapter 11 is to recognize that many aspects of a student’s life may require disability accommodations but are not linked directly to the law faculty context. The accommodations must be sought elsewhere, usually with the assistance of an office somewhere else on the university campus. Another goal of the chapter is to remind students of a few potential resources available in the wider community.

This guidebook was not designed to be comprehensive, but to look at aspects of the law faculty environment that differ to a degree from what a student experiences in post-secondary education preceding law school. This chapter will therefore not go into such issues as transportation, housing and other matters that are important to a student, but are not remarkably different for a law student as compared to an undergraduate. Nonetheless, some readers may have acquired a disability quite recently, or might have experienced a worsening of a disability and may only now require accommodations. Others who they have been out in the world of employment (or unemployment) for some years may need reminding of the range of activities and facilities that could require disability accommodations when they are attending law school or university.

The central campus service assisting students with disabilities (whether it is called the Disability Services Office, the Special Needs Office, or some other name) is familiar with accommodations available to overcome barriers in daily living for people with various disabilities. The Office is the primary resource for accommodations focused on educational matters, and a secondary resource when matters pertains to something such as use of athletic facilities, access to cultural and non-educational social events, and so on. Other services or groups on campus focus primarily on those subjects.

We have allowed for the possibility that a law student might forget some matters about which accommodation inquiries should be made concerning aspects of non-academic life. A source to which you can turn for examples is Chapter 12, covering law schools in Québec. In Chapter 12, we chose to include reference to sides of student life associated with the wider university and city communities, especially under the following headings: 12.11 - Transportation and Parking, 12.12 - Housing and 12.13 - Other Information, which covers such issues as Access to Athletic Facilities and Access to Social Events. By providing this kind of detail in one chapter, we offer illustrations that may help students in any part of Canada to know what they might potentially ask for, with the advice and assistance of Disability Service Providers on their own campuses.

As is indicated elsewhere in this Guide, students with disabilities should be asking questions about issues such as housing and transportation when deciding their priority list of law schools to attend, assuming that they have a choice of schools. (For example, almost all universities included in this study have some fully accessible accommodations for students with disabilities, although demand may exceed availability and the rules for who is entitled to these rooms vary.) Many students with disabilities apply to law school in only their home city, because of concerns about affordable and accessible housing and transportation and the lack of a support network in another city. Climate has also been identified as a factor by survey respondents. Some disabilities such as arthritis are aggravated by cold or damp weather. It is also more difficult for everyone, including students with mobility or visual disabilities, to manoeuvre in harsh winter conditions.

Students who require the assistance of a personal care attendant are no doubt already aware that such services are not provided or arranged through a campus Special Needs Office, and that attendant care needs are not financially assisted directly by the university or by student loan programs. While the expenses for some individuals may be covered completely or in part by community agencies (or by another public program such as Workers’ Compensation), two of our survey participants who required attendant care indicated that they paid for it themselves, which imposed additional financial hardship on them.

Community-based agencies and interest groups provide a number of services and supports not available through on-campus Special Needs Offices. The Special Needs Office may be able to direct the student to off-campus organizations, however. Students may also find the Directory of Disability Organizations in Canada (2000) to be an invaluable resource. For more information go to http://indie.ca/abilities/. Complete contact information is available in the bibliography. One survey participant gives this advice: "A useful trick is to become aware of any toll-free number that is available to learn more details on your disease or impairment and how to overcome it. There are also websites, as well as peer support networks available online and in larger cities."

Among hundreds of other things, the 1999 Canada-wide study by the National Educational Association of Disabled Students (NEADS) revealed that there are only a few local associations of students with disabilities. As they perhaps did in their undergraduate days, however, law students with a disability may find support from community or national organizations focused on particular kinds of disability or from associations that look at disability issues in general. In addition to its educational and other activities, NEADS (headquartered at Carleton University) coordinates a national Internet network among students, some of whom are law students or recent graduates. Another established organization is the Canadian Association of Visually Impaired Lawyers (CAVIL), which could serve as an example to other groupings of lawyers and law students with disabilities.

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