November 24, 2020

Law School Student Featured in National ABA Video

The American Bar Association (ABA) Commission on Disability Rights and the Law School Admission Council created a video featuring disabled lawyers and law students.
Law school student and SBA President Amanda Pham Haines ’21 was featured in the
ABA video.

The Americans with Disabilities Act celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. To mark this occasion, the American Bar Association (ABA) Commission on Disability Rights and the Law School Admission Council created a video featuring disabled lawyers and law students. The video discusses why disability diversity and inclusion is so important and why employers should recruit employees with disabilities. The video also emphasizes the importance of de-stigmatizing disability in the legal field.

Law school student and SBA President Amanda Pham Haines ’21 was featured in the ABA video. “Hiring lawyers who have disabilities shouldn’t be seen as a tokenizing move,” Pham Haines states in the video. “It should be something that you’re doing to make your firm and your legal community and the community broader, a more equitable, inclusive, and better place.”

Pham Haines also co-founded the Disability Allied Law Student Association (DALSA) with Debika Finucane ’22 in early 2020. DALSA aims to create accessible spaces on campus, provide representation for differently-abled students at Lewis & Clark Law School, and to organize students around disability rights.

Watch the full ABA video here.