“A Massachusetts federal judge recently ruled that Americans with Disabilities Act and related claims against New England Law | Boston can move forward in a lawsuit against the school for expelling a student with learning disabilities who failed two courses. … According to court papers, the plaintiff, Seva Brodsky, was expelled after failing two courses in the spring of 2005, and later learned from medical testing that his ‘memory and organizational deficits’ likely stemmed from an accident in the early 1980s.” He was denied readmission even though, he alleged, he presented medical evidence of his disability and had completed satisfactory work in a law program in Israel. [Sheri Qualters, NLJ]
6 Comments
Would you want to hire an attorney with such cognitive problems? If he did satisfactory course work in Israel, go and practice there.
Interestingly it is my opinion that New England Law School may have actually done quite a favor for Mr. Brodsky by expelling him when they did. It is common knowledge that the vast bulk of graduating students from New England Law are not able to obtain jobs as lawyers since there is a glut of lawyers and New England Law is so low on the pecking order of law schools in the Boston area. So New England Law has potentially saved him the fate of wasting a lot more money on tuition than he has already spent only to find when he graduated that spending all that money on law school tuition was wasted when he would have been unable to obtain a job as a lawyer. Perhaps Mr. Brodsky should be thanking New England Law for saving him all that money instead of suing them.
While Phil’s approach has ample merit, what ever happened to the idea that schools’ jobs consisted of determining who was and was not up to cutting it? I don’t care that you’re ill—if you have an illness that prevents you from being an attorney, it suggests that you shouldn’t be an attorney. Like the people with “ADD” who get extra time to take exams. Uhm, I have a disability where I would benefit from additional time on the exam, too. It’s called “being human.”
Paul
Your mistake is assuming that law school has a whole lot to do with being an attorney. They taught me very little of what i use today, and the skills needed in class were very different.
The fact is you can’t judge this sort of thing unless you have all of the facts. Its that simple. disability prejudice exists, and schools and bar associations put up barriers that prevent otherwise qualified people from achieving their goals. but obviously lawsuit abuse exists, too. So you can’t know who is right or wrong without a much deeper evaluation.
Rather than saying we should want this school to “save us” from a potentially incompetant lawyer, why not make our own judgments about his competancy? Bar associations, for instance, have at times refused to put their tests into braille, that is how interfering they are. Shoudln’t we be the ones to decide whether we want a lawyer who is blind or not? Or in this case, learning disabled?
This may be a case of rather than us being overlawyered, we are overregulated.
Btw, schools don’t typically give out extra time on exams for ADD. For the record.
A.W.
You are absolutely correct. It is a matter of fact for a jury to decide.
Make it a loser pays game where the plaintiff can be personally responsible, and I’m all in!
How do you know if you want a blind/mentally handicapped lawyer until you give them a shot? Just because mental acuity and capability would likely make for a successful lawyer/trial in your favor does not mean that you should shy away from those who are deficient does it?