Navigating Law School and Beyond:
A Practical Guide for Students Who Have Disabilities

Preface

This guidebook (the Guide) is the result of a study of Canadian law schools and bar admission programs conducted by Reach in 1999-2000. An earlier phase of this project led to a manual, called A Framework for Action, directed at law schools and university administrators, especially education equity personnel and disability service providers. Both the Framework and the present Guide are intended for use by current and prospective law students who have disabilities (as well as by university, law school, and bar admission course instructors and administrators, and disability service providers). The Guide provides information about the extent and effectiveness of accommodation policies and practices available in law schools and bar admission courses across the country and in Notariat education in Québec.

The Law Requires Law Schools to Accommodate Students with Disabilities

Educational institutions, including universities, law schools and bar admission programs have a legal obligation to provide reasonable accommodation that promotes equity for students who have disabilities. This legal duty is created by provincial and federal human rights law that applies to post-secondary education, including the equality rights guaranteed for individuals with disabilities by Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Judicial interpretations of the aforementioned laws have reinforced the rights of students and other people in Canada who have disabilities. More extensive discussion of relevant law is presented in A Framework for Action, at pages 14 to 34.

Accommodation is the adjustment of a rule, practice, condition, or requirement to take into account the specific needs of an individual or group. To some degree it involves treating individuals differently. Different treatment to adjust for a disability is legally required if the accommodation is needed to ensure that the individual has the opportunity to participate fully and equally.

The duty to accommodate in employment, educational and other fields is balanced by the notion that the university or other institution/entity is not obligated to provide accommodations that cause undue hardship for the institution or entity. The legal responsibility to make accommodations for a student with a disability does not stop when minor hardships are encountered. In deciding whether hardships are excessive or "undue" in a university setting, a court or human rights tribunal may look at factors such as: the financial resources required by the university to provide an accommodation; the degree and kinds of effects that accommodations will have on other students; the impact of accommodations on the educational program itself; and unusual risks, if any, that accommodations may pose for faculty or other students, including other students who have a disability.

Experts consulted during research for the current project have been operating under the reasonable presumption that educational accommodations for students with disabilities would almost always be legally required, and indicated that provable undue hardship for a university or law school would be very rare. One potential exception cited was the situation in which massive renovations are needed to make campus buildings more accessible, when the funds needed are not presently available from any source.

A law student who participated in the preparation of this guidebook asked an intriguing question: "[Do governments] have an obligation to make funds available so the institution can accommodate?" That question is not addressed here; we suggest that students and faculty members recommend the question as an assignment for constitutional and human rights law courses and moot court programs at their law faculties.

In Practical Terms, What is Education Accommodation?

In legal education (and in education generally), accommodation for a disability can take many forms, including:

In the career, educational and other fields, accommodations help to give capable people who do not fit a particular "norm" a fair chance to succeed personally and professionally within our contribute to society. In the university and law school environments, accommodations are intended to prevent a disability from becoming a determining factor in the assessment of a student’s knowledge and skills. Though law faculties and campus disability service providers need to offer accommodations based on systematic application of policies and good practices, individualized accommodation is usually required by each student who has a disability. The severity of a disability varies among individuals and each person responds to and succeeds differently with a disability. Every situation is unique and must be assessed individually.

Accommodations do not compromise academic integrity or standards because the same requirements are expected of all students. Rather, accommodation can ensures that students with special needs are given a fair opportunity to achieve these standards. Accommodation facilitates flexibility and recognizes that some students may achieve the same results in different ways.

Much of the information in this Guide was obtained through surveys distributed across Canada to law students and law graduates who have disabilities and through Focus Group discussions held at law schools in four provinces. Those who participated in the surveys and discussions were asked to describe barriers and useful accommodation efforts they had encountered and to share their personal survival tips for law students with disabilities. Participating students and lawyers provided reality-based observations on the quality of education equity and accommodation initiatives. While this Guide focuses on "best practices", we also mention a few "worst practices" that students told us about. These horror stories from real life might alert students and others to potential problems that can be avoided, worked around or overcome.

Our survey respondents were representative of people with mobility, physical, sensory, learning and mental disabilities, and other non-visible disabling conditions such as chronic pain. Just as the nature and severity of disabilities varies, so do the accommodations required to render each person’s educational context more equitable. All participants indicated that their disabilities had some adverse effect on the quality of their legal education. Reasonable accommodations are usually available nowadays for law students, but survey respondents identified many areas needing improvement at their own educational institutions and generally.

Every Canadian law school was contacted frequently during the project, primarily to facilitate direct, confidential contact between students and project researchers, but also to investigate institutional policies and practices. We quizzed university and law school staff concerned with disability accommodations and reviewed pertinent printed and online materials. Of particular assistance in our research on disability accommodations were those Internet homepages of Canadian universities and law schools that clearly described accommodation policies and services offered at these specific institutions. Disappointment arose, however, when a website was either generally uninformative or difficult to navigate, or revealed little useful information about disability supports and services. Our experience in the project confirmed that the Internet can be a valuable tool for any potential law (or other) student, particularly one who has a disability.

The resources available to Reach for preparation of this guidebook did not permit a detailed verification and listing of accommodation policies and services at all twenty law schools in Canada and on each university campus where a law school is located. Nor would it have been the best use of resources, because comprehensive surveys of university and college services for students with disabilities have recently been carried out by other organizations. The Bibliography includes reference to studies looking at accommodation measures for post-secondary students who have disabilities, such as that published in 1999 by the National Educational Association of Disabled Students (NEADS), as well as Eansor and Chartrand, Canadian Law School Academic Access and Support Programs (1997). By examining these resources (many of which are both in print and on the Internet), one can learn of additional adjustments or services that could be requested at a law school or university.

While recognizing that it was inappropriate to conduct another complete national survey of accommodations at law schools or on university campuses, we deemed it worthwhile to make specific comparisons among a few law schools, to highlight the range of disability accommodations that could be, and therefore should be, available to a student. With this objective in mind, we conducted an analysis of the official accommodation offerings of all five law schools in Québec, including those offered in each law school’s wider university setting. By reading Chapter 12 on Québec, students and applicants from any province or territory can learn something worthwhile about accommodation options that a student could seek during legal education. Other hints may be garnered by reviewing the lists in Chapter 5.2 of this Guide, under the heading Disabilities Experienced and Accommodated in Law School Education.

Though we did not conduct a country-wide comprehensive survey of accommodation programs ourselves, we did of course review the results of the NEADS survey mentioned above, as well as other extensive reports listed in the Bibliography. In addition, at a number of stages of the research and drafting, the editor received expert advice from members of the national executive of the Canadian Association of Disability Service Providers in Post-Secondary Education (CADSPPE). Wise advice was also forthcoming from members of the Project Advisory Group established at the outset of the guidebook project.

No matter what law school or post law school course you attend or hope to attend, parts of this Guide may introduce or confirm data and concepts that could prove valuable for yourself, a classmate or a member of university or law school staff who cares about both quality education and equity.

A central goal of this Guide has been to provide data and general insights that are useful in real life for a student with a disability – regardless of which accommodation policies and practices are officially offered in that student’s particular law school, university or bar admission program. While all law schools considered in the preparation of this handbook recognize the needs of students with disabilities, the approaches of the schools vary significantly. A few have firm policies and systematic accommodation services, whose offerings are well publicized and used. At the other end of the scale are faculties where accommodation seems to be ad hoc. As a result of very recent enhancements, the Law Society of Upper Canada’s bar admission course, and perhaps that of British Columbia, may offer accommodations for disability that are as good as those provided by some of the better law school and university disability services programs. We are hopeful that other bar admission programs across the country will also update their approaches toward accommodations and we understand that a few are taking positive steps in this regard.

Because students are not accorded a uniform opportunity for reasonable accommodations at law schools and in Bar Ad programs across Canada, the effect is a denial of equal opportunity of access to legal studies. Choices for students with disabilities are often restricted by practical considerations that are of much less concern for students who do not have a known disability. For example, a student with a disability is less likely to have a meaningful option of whether to leave his or her hometown or university city to attend law school. As several survey participants asked, "Why would we add hurdles to the challenge of law school by moving away from our support networks?" Networks of family, friends and community services are often crucial to independence and daily living.

The lack of consistency in accommodation services available in the twenty Canadian law schools and in their universities and communities is a factor that a student with a disability must weigh when deciding where to apply for admission to law school. Choosing the location at which to take courses is also a significant consideration in many bar admission programs and in Québec’s Notariat program.

There appears to be a general awareness at Canadian law schools and universities of the needs and special circumstances of students with disabilities at the post-secondary level. Significant progress was made during the latter part of the 20^th century in responding to these needs but there is definitely room for improvement. An objective of this Guide is to encourage and assist every law school and bar admission program to strive for enhanced accommodations for students who have disabilities.

We trust that this guidebook will help many law students with disabilities to become more aware, better prepared and better equipped to self-advocate. We hope that the "survival tips" and the references to resources and "best practices" will be useful for students and disability service providers. We are somewhat optimistic in expressing this hope, because among the people who researched, wrote and edited elements of this Guide, there are several law students and lawyers with diverse disabilities who have successfully worked around these potential barriers in their own careers.