LawyersUSA

Brian D. Sheridan, a 58-year-old trial lawyer in Ishpeming, Mich., is stone cold deaf.

But that doesn't stop him from going to court.

In fact, he does so with great frequency as a partner in a small Upper Peninsula law firm, and recently argued a case before the 6th Circuit.

For Sheridan – and for thousands of other hearing-impaired lawyers in the U.S. – the trick to practicing law in a hearing world is largely one of technology. Sheridan relies on a cochlear implant; others rely on hearing aids, phone amplifiers and real-time transcribers – present or remote – who quickly convert spoken words into text.

But hearing-impaired lawyers say it takes more than machinery to do the job.

"I do think that attorneys with my disability have to work a lot harder to make up for it," said Albert Y. Lin, a partner at Brown McCarroll in Austin, Texas.

It can also take a bit of litigation to nudge the courts into making themselves accessible to the hearing-impaired.

In Florida, Scott Harrison of Winter Park recently reached a settlement with the state in a suit he filed because he was denied real-time court-reporting services in criminal trials. Harrison, a solo practitioner, argued that he couldn't afford to pay for the service. Following the settlement, Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred Lewis spelled out new guidelines providing court-reporting services for lawyers who are deaf or hearing-impaired.

In Canada, attorney Scott Simser has been a zealous proponent of making courts more accessible for deaf and hearing-impaired lawyers. He filed a human rights complaint against the Tax Court of Canada for not providing him a real-time reporter and settled the case just before it went to a human rights tribunal.

"Ever since then, no court has turned down a request by me, as lawyer, for a real-time captionist or sign language interpreter," he told Lawyers USA.

In Michigan, Sheridan wrote an article for the October 2005 Michigan Bar Journal describing his experiences in making courts more audio-friendly for hearing-impaired lawyers and provided a checklist for how to go about the task.

He wrote that lawyers undertaking this task must be prepared to work with court personnel, to test the system and remind the judge that "the system is not a mere convenience, but is essential for your participation in the case."

Click here to see companion story, "Beating the odds: Deaf lawyer succeeds as litigator"

Technology for everyday practice

Lin uses a CapTel phone to assist him with phone conversations. The CapTel phone provides real-time captions on a screen via voice-recognition technology.

Lin is totally deaf in his left ear, with only slight hearing in his right one. With his "residual hearing" and lip reading, he can usually understand about 75 percent of what's said.

But he also points out that his practice is transactional, focusing on general tax issues, and "transactional lawyers rely on e-mail extensively; it's the nature of what we do."

Within the firm, Lin has needed no special accommodations to communicate with his colleagues.

"I really try to downplay it," he said. "I've convinced myself it's not a problem, and I don't think anyone else here thinks it is. At least if they do, they haven't said so to my face."

Law school was more difficult.

Like many other hearing-impaired students, Lin relied on CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) technology, in which a stenographer enters the instructors' statements using machine shorthand and computer software then immediately translates it into English on computer screens.

Although his impairment made it more difficult to get a job, Brown McCarroll essentially said, "If it's not a problem for you, it's not a problem for us." They've proved true to their work, promoting Lin to partner in his seventh year with the firm.

Employment lawyer Spencer D. Phillips, a second-year associate with Nixon Peabody in Rochester, N.Y., has also found it easy to adapt to office life, in spite of his impairment. He is completely deaf in one ear and wears a hearing aid in the other, which functions at about 20 percent of normal hearing. He is also fluent in American Sign Language, but rarely uses it inside the firm.

He said that in the office he needs only the hearing aid, an amplified phone and a bit of boldness. "If I miss part of a conversation, I'm assertive in telling people that I missed it and I ask them to repeat it."

Phillips devotes most of his practice to counseling employers and uses his spare time to advocate for hearing-impaired people, including pro bono representation. He recently settled a case involving a landlord who sought to evict two deaf tenants who relied on a hearing dog to alert them to sounds. The apartment lease had a "no pets" provision that the landlord had not enforced and then changed his mind.

As a member of a national group called Deaf Attorneys (www.deafattorneys.com), he frequently shares tips with law students and others about how to launch a legal career.

Few people are guilty of "blatant discrimination," he said, but frequently they don't realize they have an obligation to communicate differently with hearing-disabled people – speaking slower, for example.
But Phillips believes that hearing-impaired lawyers also have an obligation to inform people of their needs.

"It never hurts to have that discussion," he said. "We call it the interactive process."

Questions or comments can be directed to the writer at: dick.dahl@lawyersusaonline.com