enormously important ultimate objectives of the ADA, legitimizes the legislation even as against the sacrosanct ideal of unobtruded free enterprise. While I, along with most good Republicans, view any effort to regulate business with an extremely jaundiced eye, I can safely say that a reasoned analysis of the Senate compromise ADA renders inescapable the conclusion that it is essential, timely, and absolutely reasonable as presently crafted. My initial review of the original bill last year left me with some concern about its impact on small business. I was very understanding of the need to include small businesses within the scope of the substantive provisions of the ADA. If the public accommodations provisions in the ADA are to have any meaning, they must have broad application to small as well as larger businesses. Many restaurants where my client or firm business is conducted are small businesses. Many of the businesses in my neighborhood and community that I would like to patronize but cannot due to inaccessibility are small businesses. It is important that the public accommodations substantive provisions not differentiate among businesses of different sizes because it is access that is at stake. Any exemption based strictly on size and no other factor would effectively deny the very right of access to the types of businesses that this bill is designed to create. Nevertheless, I was concerned that there was no safety valve for the enormous cost pressures that might be imposed on small businesses within some circumstances contemplated by the bill. That concern has been more than vitiated by the Senate compromise version of the bill that includes an "undue burden" relief provision." I am now firmly convinced that all of America stands to gain from the passage and implementation of the ADA as it now exists. Aside from the human dignity benefits that will be reaped by Americans with disabilities, the most obvious benefit to the public at large will be realized from the unleashing of the The small business exemptions in the ADA track the exemptions that exist in other civil rights laws. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race, sex, religion or national origin, exempts employers with 15 or fewer employees. The ADA adopts the same exemption. By contrast, Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in public accommodations on the basis of race, religion or national origin, does not have a small business exemption. This differentiation is logical: the point of a public accommodations provision is to ensure that people with disabilities (or people of a certain race) can gain access into public places, such as restaurants, movie theaters and stores. The fact that such a business may have only five or ten employees is irrelevant to the issue of providing access. One related relevant consideration, however, would be whether the provision of access would create an undue burden for any particular business -- no matter what the size of the business. The ADA in fact takes this concern into account and provides a flexible measure of undue burden by considering the size of the business along with the cost of the accommodation in deciding whether the provision of the accommodation would create an "undue burden" on the business. Size alone doos not transform every form of accommodation into an "undue burden." Even though this flexible standard is necessary in order to reasonably address the vast number of different situations that are likely to arise under the ADA, the standard and practice for determining the existence of an "undue burden" under the ADA will be guided by fifteen years of experience using the same standard under Section 504. The factors outlined in the ADA are the same factors set forth in the Section 504 regulations (size of business. type of operation and cost of accommodation). talents, potential, and enthusiasm of the millions of workingage Americans with disabilities who are isolated, segregated, or unproductive simply by virtue of the inhospitable and inaccessible environments in which they live. There will also be a direct financial benefit to the federal government. In my case, when I finally was able to obtain permanent employment I no longer had to collect my monthly Social Security disability payment, Medicare benefits or vocational rehabilitation funding. Instead, I became a productive, taxpaying citizen able to support the domestic and medical bills I incurred through salary and benefits obtained on the job. Even though the federal benefits that I was receiving before I became employed were minuscule compared to those received by most persons with severe disabilities, only four years after going to work I now estimate that the net direct and positive financial impact on the federal government due to my employment is approximately $40,000 to $50,000 per year. This benefit is reaped not just directly by the federal government, but also indirectly by all taxpayers including the covered entities that will incur the direct costs associated with the ADA. The other direct beneficiaries in this process will be employers. In my case, Pettit & Martin now has a professional employee who is enormously grateful for the opportunity to work and live independently. The result, I believe, is that I exhibit on-the-job performance well above firm expectations, a level of dedication and commitment to the firm that is typically not found among associate attorneys, a willingness eagerly to perform the hardest or least-desired tasks on assigned matters, and a readymade desire to achieve excellence in practice that is difficult to instill in any employee. I know from whence I came, and I would just as soon not go back. In addition to these measurable benefits, the ADA represents the idea of possibilities to millions of Americans. The ADA is a statement to millions of Americans with disabilities that we may all dare to dream. It is a statement to even more Americans that if they or a loved one were to develop a disability, they would not need to stop dreaming. The ADA simply makes possible for persons with disabilities what we have always wanted to believe about America that the truest measure of a person is the - content of that person's character, and not the color of the person's skin. or the presence of a disability. For the above reasons, I heartily urge you to adopt the ADA as it is composed in the Senate compromise. THE NEW YORK TIMES THE LAW FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1988 P. B6 Disabled Lawyers Join in Drive on Bias in Hiring By LIS WIEHL As the legal profession opens its doors to many it once shunned, handicapped lawyers are presenting themselves for consideration. They are raising their voices against discrimination by law schools and law firms and pushing for special legislation and improved hiring. "Lawyers more than anyone are supposed to be advocates for the unheard," said Laura Cooper, a 32-yearold wheelchair-bound lawyer who heads the American Bar Association's Disabled Lawyers Committee. "If they don't do better, who will?" After graduating near the top of her law school class at the University of Washington and winning a judicial clerkship, she was rejected 400 times before she got her first job offer, from the San Francisco firm of Pettit & Martin. Rejected as 'Freaks Paul Miller, a recent Harvard graduate who heads the legal affairs committee of Little People of America, said firms often showed blas agains! dwarfs. "I did as well as most of my classmates in law school, but I had to make literally hundreds of job Inquiries," he said. "A Philadelphia firm told me they didn't want clients to think they were running a side. show freak act." Ms. Cooper's bar committee is seeking data on the number of disabled lawyers ("No one has ever bothered to count us," she said) and is finding such statistics hard to come by. Organizations for blind lawyers report combined rolls of nearly 500 members, said Steven Speicher, director of the American Blind Law. yers Association, Lincoln, Neb. There are at least 12 blind judges. Tapping the Rights Act Several hundred lawyers in wheelchairs have graduated from law schools in the 80's. Many are Vietnam veterans. The National Center for. Law and the Deaf refers prospective clients to a list of 13 deaf lawyers. Lit. the People of America keeps a list, The New York Times/Michael Tweed Laura Cooper, head of the A.B.A.'s Disabled Lawyers' Committee, with her specially equipped van. After graduating near the top of her law school class, she was rejected 400 times before she got her first job offer. The handicapped are lobbying for a bill in Congress. cants unless a disability would interfere substantially with the job. It would also require, within certain cost limits, that employers remodel the place of business if, for instance, a doorway was too narrow for a wheelchair. Certain employers would also have to get special equipment for the disabled. wants law schools to use their leverage with firms that recruingn campuses. Many impaired lawyers said their feelings of alienation began in law school. "It was a hint of things to come," said R. Donald Brown, a 50year-old blind lawyer in Seattle, who heard students complain that his presence cheapened their degrees. His wife, Lisa, also blind, is to become his sole law partner. "Professors tell us bluntly that we'll never keep up with the reading," he said, "but with recorded materials and volunteer readers, we get it done.".. The sites of bar examinations can pose problems for applicants in wheelchairs, said Ms. Cooper. "It is inconceivable to me that lawyers I could schedule important events in Disabled lawyers are also putting places that I can't get to," she said. direct pressure on law firms to ac-But it happens all the time, includquire new aids, including synthetic speech systems that already let blinding depositions and compulsory bar lawyers use computer research tools Hike Westlaw and Lexis. Hearing-impaired lawyers want amplification devices in courtrooms. Mr. Miller seminars." for accommodating the disabled at Her committee is drawing up rules bar exams. Robert Raven, president of the American Bar Association, said he could foresee special test sites. Disabled lawyers say' law firms hire women and members of racial minorities but not the handicapped. "It is nearly impossible for us to get hired," Ms. Cooper said. "The jobs we find are usually low-paying ones, working with people who don't readily believe in our worth, in courtrooms and offices that are often inaecessible." The Firms' Point of View The firms say that from their point of view, the issue is largely economic. "I'm not sure what the response of our firm would be in hiring a blind lawyer, but we'd certainly have in look at the costs," said Kenneth Anderson, hiring partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Los Angeles. He fears that disabled lawyers might not be able to work long hours. To compensate for lost efficiency, we would probably adjust compensation." He said his firm could accommodate only a limited number of disabled lawyers. "We could have one person off the partnership track be cause of a mobility impairment, but we can't have 15," he said. His firm has more than 600 lawyers, At Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York, the hiring partner, Evan Chesler, said that in evaluating disabled applicants, his firm would apply its usual standards, but would not want to "put people into situations they can't handle." Those Who Scrabble By Because few disabled lawyers have been hired by big firms, most have government jobs or small practices. When Mr. Brown opened his practice he depended on clients no other lawyers would take. "The local bar sent me all its disabled referrals, evidently believing that disabled clients should have disabled lawyers," he said. "Can you imagine a deaf client and a blind lawyer talking?" Some disabled lawyers get high government jobs. Evan Kemp, con-" fined to a wheelchair, is a commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But firms that do hire disabled lawyers often assign them to tax work, estate plaing and real estate. "Many firms hope they'll quietly turn out memos where no one will see them," Mr. Speicher said. "The few who break into litigation are often polled off cases immedi |