NALSWD's Annual Conference Starts Today

The National Association of Law Students with Disabilities (NALSWD) is a coalition of law students dedicated to disability advocacy and the achievement of equal access, inclusion, diversity and non-discrimination in legal education and in the legal profession. The Association's second annual conference begins today with a career fair and reception and runs through Sunday, August 17th at the Crystal City Sheraton in Arlington, VA.

The Conference shifts into high gear Saturday with sessions on disability law and advocacy, plus panels featuring (1) recent law school grads with disabilities discussing their experiences with job searching, the bar exam, and transitions to professional life, and (2) lawyers with disabilities employed by the federal government and law firms discussing their career paths and experiences. The Honorable Chief Judge Richard S. Brown, Wisconsin Court of Appeals, will be the Conference's keynote speaker Saturday evening. [Conference Agenda]

Stop by, if you can. The Conference is open to all. Hopefully some law librarians are going to attend. Local representatives from legal publishers should attend. Why? To hear about what their employers are not doing to accomodate law students and lawyers with disabilities. The state of affairs is shameful. I will not be attending this year's conference but at the Association's 2006 organizing meeting in DC and its first annual conference in San Francisco in 2007 I did not hear one criticism of legal publishing practices that could not be resolved by a small dose of 20th century technology. [JH]