Disabilities

This week, thousands of law school graduates will sit for the bar exam. The test -- two days in some states, three in others -- is the culmination of the law school experience and one of the final hurdles that you need to clear before you actually get to practice law.

The test itself is a miserable experience. Cramped rooms, students cramming material in the final moments, and mental and emotional exhaustion from months of studying create an atmosphere of stress and anxiety. Going home after the first night knowing that you have to do it all over again the next day (or the next two days if you are in New York, California, or a few other states) makes for a less than restful night of sleep.

A few random bar exams tips:

Tip: Practice and study using ear plugs and then bring a set with you to the exam. It's amazing how loud the sound of a sneaker squeaking on a hardwood floor can be in a room full of a thousand people...

Tip: Avoid the nuts. You will see people in the bar exam using study guides and outlines up to the very last moments before the test begins. Avoid these people like the plague. They will stress you out and ruin your focus.

Tip: Remember that it's not about how high you score -- it's about passing. Your entire law school career (and before that, college and high school...) was focused on not just passing an exam but doing so with perfect scores. You do not need to ace the bar exam, and you need to change that mindset. That's not to say you shouldn't study, but rather than you should resist the natural instinct to panic when you don't know the answer to a question. If you know the answers to most other questions, you're going to pass.

Students often spend thousands of dollars on prep courses and devote 2 months of their lives memorizing obscure legal concepts and mnemonic devices that they will regurgitate on the bar exam. I have relatively fond memories of my time spent preparing for the exam. I remained at law school after graduation and watched the BarBri lectures on video. A number of my friends did so as well. During bar exam prep your life is on a set schedule, so we decided to schedule mental health time by playing golf a few times a week at a fantastic local course. That's one other tip: be sure to schedule mental health time. Just because the bar exam happens in July doesn't mean it should ruin your summer.

With everything going on in your life as you prepare to sit for this test, imagine if you were told -- less than a week before the exam -- that a technical error was going to prevent you from sitting for it?

That's what happened to Sara Granda, a recent graduate of UC Davis School of Law. Sara spent the last couple of months preparing to take the California bar exam. She graduated UC Davis in three years, speaks fluent Spanish, and worked at an immigration law clinic. Fairly typical of a 3rd year law school student -- except Sara Granda is a quadriplegic.

Sara Granda signed up for the California bar exam and her $600 entry fee was paid for by the California Department of Rehabilitation by check. Problem is, the state bar's website requires that payment be made by credit card. Granda apparently did her homework and checked with a representative from the state bar who told her that her application would still be processed.

Unfortunately that never happened, and Granda was notified that because of a bureaucratic snafu, she was not registered for the test. Granda has petitioned the California Supreme Court to allow her to take the test, and even has Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger speaking out for her.

So as you study during this final weekend before the exam, remember that things could be worse. You could be fighting with the mnemonic devices and random Contracts question while also having to fight to take the test.

Questions or comments? We want to hear from you! And good luck on the exam.

Gregory Henning is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Virginia Law School. After graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge R. Lanier Anderson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and then became an Assistant District Attorney in Boston. As part of the Anna Ivey team, Greg works with law school applicants. 

From our college admissions counselor Christine Foster:

At least one in every 150 children has some form of autism. These kids range from non-verbal toddlers lining up toy trains to talkative teenagers, whose special needs were noticed only when the organizational and social demands of adolescence began to overwhelm them. Each of them has parents who imagined a future life like their own, or even brighter, whose dreams were changed as they sat in a psychologist’s office. Last fall, my husband and I were the ones in that seat. Our bright, beautiful – and yes, quirky – 5 year-old son was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome.

In the aftermath of his diagnosis, I began to look, among other things, at what resources there were at the college level. The answer? Not many. A handful of schools are offering special programs for kids with autism spectrum disorders. Others can seek services through their school disabilities office, but many aren’t equipped to deal with issues beyond academic accommodations. Need a time-extension for your tests or a note taker? Most can handle that. But for a kid with autism, who might need help organizing their school work, making connections with peers, or advocating for themselves with a professor, there isn’t as much available.

I’m now inspired to take a closer look at what’s out there and cast a critical eye to figure out what is working and what isn’t. As part of the Anna Ivey team, I work with college applicants, and my goal is to blog more about college offerings and the admissions process for students with special needs in particular -- from autism spectrum disorders and ADD/ADHD to learning disabilities and physical disabilities. If you have a question you’d like to see answered or a suggestion for a topic, please email us.

-----------------------------------------------------

First, a peek at a place that is doing it right. Marshall University in West Virginia has what was likely the first specific program aimed at serving students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Begin in 2002 with a single student, the program supports 20 full-time students. And Ellison expects demand to continue to burgeon. By February 1, he expects they will have sent out more than 200 applications for next year. Admissions are tough – in 2008, they received 30 applications, interviewed 26, and accepted just 5. Families pay a premium of $3200 per semester, above and beyond Marshall’s tuition to enroll their students.

Marc Ellison, the director of the program, who has worked supporting people with autism for more than 20 years, says there is definitely a sea change. “Clearly, it is a wave of 18, 19, 20 year old students unlike anything we’ve seen before,” Ellison says.

His program is ideal because they don’t offer cookie cutter services. They look at each student as an individual, assessing their strengths and needs and figuring out exactly what kind of scaffolding makes sense. Last year, one student, a music major, needed to pass a hearing in front of teachers before continuing in his field of study. But his anxiety about performing solo before that group was debilitating. Ellison’s staff helped to arrange two mock performances for the student to practice, gathering as many as 30 spectators for those sessions. The desensitization did the trick, and the student was able to continue forward with his music degree.

Unlike most college disabilities offices, Marshall’s program also provides support in three areas: academics, social, and independent living. The staff might, for example, help break down a larger assignment into smaller, more manageable chunks. The staff also has weekly contact with professors to see how things are going for their students. Socially, they run a social skills group where students can practice practical relationship building techniques. Students get hand-holding on balancing a check book, mapping out when bills are due, and helps some with monitoring to see that students are taking their medications. (Sounds like stuff many typically-developing students could use, too!)

So far, four students have graduated from the program. Two are working and two are in graduate school. But Ellison is quick to point out that the measures of success for these students might be different than for your average college student. Instead of graduating and getting a job, the bigger accomplishment might be staying social engaged.

Why bother, one might ask? Ellison’s answer is swift: “Frankly the time is right – with 1 in 150 or 1 in 166 with some kind of ASD, there is a tremendous blow coming to society if those children are undereducated. It is in everyone’s interest to recognize their strengths.”

I received an interesting question recently from Nick, instructor at Mentor Test Prep in DC:

Several LSAT students have asked me what sort of discount an LSAT score that is won under accommodated testing conditions (usually extra time) is given in the minds of law school admissions officers.

I've told most of them that you likely won't hear it from the lips of admissions officers, but I imagine there would be a not-insubstantial discounting of that score, given the implications for the student's ability to excel under the strict timing requirements of law school exams and later practice.

Would you care to tackle that one?  I'm operating on pure gut instinct, and I'd like to be able to speak with some measure of authority on this matter.

This is a controversial topic, and I’m sure I’ll be receiving some hate mail in response, but here goes.

First: As an applicant, purely for admissions purposes, you're likely better off applying with a higher accommodated score than a lower unaccommodated one. (For human development purposes, though, I agree with Paragon to Pieces that accommodations can have a corrupting effect.) Law schools care an inordinate amount about the numbers, no matter what they say publicly. They don’t have to report accommodated scores to the ABA (and by extension to US News), but even so, higher numbers are always better. What an applicant has to worry about is how he stacks up with his higher accommodated number against someone with the same unaccommodated number. Better to be in that particular horse race, though, than to be outside of striking distance because of a lower number.

Second: Plenty of admissions officers are skeptical about accommodations for learning disabilities. They won't say that, but it's true. LSAC might accommodate someone who has trouble “processing information quickly” (or some variation on that theme), and law schools might accommodate such a person in the classroom. The real world won’t, however, and I worry – and plenty of admissions officers worry – about how people who lack skills that are fundamental to practicing law are going to do when they’re outside of the protective cocoon of law school.

Third: Admissions officers generally don’t like to read the reports that explain what the disability is, or what the specific accommodations were. All they look at is the asterisk next to the LSAT score designating it as accommodated. There are universities whose in-house counsel won’t even let admissions officers read the underlying reports. Why? Because knowing what the disability is opens admissions officers up to lawsuits under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Universities prefer to live in a don’t-ask-don’t-tell regime.

Fourth: What all that means for applicants is that if your disability is a physical one (rather than a learning disability), it’s in your interest to write an addendum explaining the nature of the disability. Someone who’s in a wheelchair is still going to have an easier time practicing law than someone who has trouble processing words quickly. If your disability is a learning disability, keep your mouth shut. Do not volunteer any information about the disability; just take the upside of the higher score, and the upside of don’t-ask-don’t-tell.

Fifth: This whole issue is likely to go the way of the dodo. As a result of lawsuits (naturally), neither the GMAT, the GRE, nor the SAT designates scores as accommodated anymore. The days of asterisked LSAT scores have to be numbered. See here, here, and here.

More Ivey Files postings on this issue here and here.

Interesting posting at blog 'Number 2 Pencil' here. (Her "About Me" page is interesting too.)

Article by an attorney who specializes in accommodations issues here.

Article in favor of non-designated scores here.

You read that correctly. A University of Michigan Law School student is claiming that he is being discriminated against on law school exams because of his slow typing skills.

How on God's green earth do people like that expect to function in the real world? Does he think a judge is going to care that he missed an appeal deadline because he couldn't type quickly enough? Or that the SEC will overlook that late 8-K filing? Or that a client will forgive him for tanking the acquisition just because he couldn't crank out the letter of intent?

His summer law firm apparently already fired him -- hmmmm, wonder why. Naturally he is suing the firm as well.

See here for more of my thoughts on this entitlement complex.

Sue Shellenbarger's most recent "Work & Family" column in the Wall Street Journal -- "Young Workers With Dyslexia, ADD Find Office Less Accommodating Than School" -- resonated with me. She notes that employers have not kept pace with the recent growth in diagnoses of learning disabilities and the accommodations Gen Y students have grown accustomed to at school.

I have mixed feelings about her call for more accommodations. I would guestimate that at least half of the Gen Y college students and recent grads I work with have been diagnosed with a learning disability, which makes me wonder whether something still counts as a disability when it seems increasingly to be the norm.

I also wonder -- and worry -- about the students who receive such generous accommodations in college (from both their schools and their parents) that they emerge from college convinced they can't handle even basic tasks. I worked with a recent college graduate a few years ago who refused, based on his disability, to assemble a list of graduate schools he was interested in and their deadlines. That's it. School, deadline. School, deadline. Repeat twelve times. I even showed him where to find the deadlines on the grad school websites. He was convinced he couldn't do it and reacted with shock and anger when I told him I wouldn't do it for him. I felt like the first person to say to him, "you must do this yourself."

Perhaps I was. I didn't need to ask him how he'd graduated from college -- a good one
-- with that (perceived) incapacity, because I knew that his parents
and school administrators had basically absolved him of having to do
anything for himself. I did, however, ask him how he would ever hold down a job if he couldn't handle a task as rudimentary as that one. All those accommodations had really set him up for failure. It was depressing. At what point are these accommodations exacerbating learning disabilities, and creating life disabiltities? Consider the accommodations that Shellenbarger recommends employers make available for this influx of learning disabled millennials:

• tape recorders to record or dictate information
• frequent short breaks
• quiet workspace
• specific filing or organizational systems
• varied presentation methods during training

The one that I find most unrealistic is the fourth -- since when is it the boss's job to keep an employee organized? Even the article, which is very pro-accommodations, quotes a Disabilities Act lawyer about employees who "have an undue sense of entitlement":

Attorney Patricia H. Latham of Washington, D.C., tells of a client with ADD who kept arriving to work late. "They're angry with me, and I don't think they should be, because that's part of my problem," the woman said and asked Ms. Latham to write her bosses a letter. Ms. Latham refused, telling the woman, "your employer doesn't have to put up with your being late to work."

There's no question in my mind that colleges and the parents of Gen Y feed that completely bonkers sense of entitlement and incapability. Could there possibly be a worse way to prepare college students for the working world?

The article also made me ponder the number of people who manage to wrangle learning disability diagnoses to secure accommodations on their standardized admissions tests. I know for a fact that some people game the system, and somewhere licensed professionals all sign off on this stuff, which makes it awfully hard to tell applicants, "that's bad -- don't do it." Interestingly, after being sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the makers of the GMAT exam no longer indicate on their score reports whether the test taker has been accommodated. LSAT score reports still do, but surely some litigious applicant (or more likely the applicant's parent) is putting a stop to that as I type.