What do you do at Empire Justice?
I am a Crime Victims Attorney in the Rochester Office.
What motivates you to be active in this work?
I went to law school with the goal of helping people. I started off in the Disability Rights world, using my skills to help advance the rights of people with disabilities. I was excited to transition to helping crime victims because, as a crime victim myself, I understand how hard it can be to recover after being victimized. There are so many ways our lives are impacted when we experience a crime and it can feel impossible to move forward sometimes. I wish that I had a Crime Victims Attorney to help me when I was a victim, and I am happy to be able to provide help – and a sense of relief – to my clients.
How has the Americans with Disabilities Act affected your work with victims of crime?
The ADA has impacted me in everything I do. First, as a proud disabled woman, I know that I would not be a lawyer today without the ADA. The ADA was enacted when I was just two years old. This means that I was two years old when I got my rights – the same rights that non-disabled people are born with. The right to access restaurants, the right to be in a law school classroom, and even the right to work without being rejected because of my disability. That is the first and most significant way that the ADA has impacted my work.
Second, in the Rochester office, we give priority to crime victims with disabilities who experience financial crimes. Over half of our caseload is crime victims with disabilities. I regularly help my clients access different services based on the ADA. For example, if I have a Deaf client, I know that they will be able to have access to effective communication in court because the ADA requires the court to provide sign language interpreters – although sometimes I have to remind the courts of this responsibility.
There are so many times that I have used the ADA to help my clients that I honestly couldn’t name them all. My clients are often surprised to learn of their rights or to learn about how much the ADA covers, so I am happy to help them understand their rights so that they can advocate for themselves in different situations in the future.
What does the ADA mean to you personally?
I think I already answered a bit of that in the previous question. To add to that, the ADA is the declaration of my rights – but it is not the answer to everything that the Disability Community needs. Even with the ADA, I experience discrimination every day. All disabled people do. From businesses who think they’re “exempt” from the ADA (they’re not) to the way that individuals treat us – we are nowhere near having full equality for people with disabilities. Many disabled people are still warehoused in institutions, others are being paid sub-minimum wages, and even more are having their reproductive rights ripped away from them (shout out to Britney Spears for making this a nationally recognized issue!) – and all of this is legal. The ADA is a good start, but our nation has a lot more work to do.
How can we enforce the rights of people with disabilities?
It’s important for people with disabilities and our allies to call out inaccessibility, ableism, and discrimination every single time. This can be really exhausting, but the more we just “let it go” the more things just stay the same. I especially encourage non-disabled people to speak up because sometimes people who discriminate against disabled people are more willing to listen to non-disabled people. It’s unfortunate, I know, but sometimes that’s what needs to happen to make the change. For example, if I ask a restaurant manager why they do not have a ramp to get inside, they might blow me off, but if a person who walks asks the manager the same question, the manager may be more responsive. I see this happen far too often, which is why I always encourage non-disabled people to actively work with disabled people on these issues.
What is the most challenging part of your job?
Saying no to people. There are so many people who need help, and not enough Crime Victims Attorneys to help everyone. The hardest thing for me to do is to tell someone that we cannot help them.
Tell us something most people don’t know about you?
I love skydiving, but I hate SCUBA diving which is unfortunate because my husband is a SCUBA dive master who teaches disabled youth how to SCUBA dive!
Who or what inspires you?
My dad. When I was born he was an alcoholic and a drug addict. It took a while, but he got clean and raised my siblings and I to never judge others. Eventually he opened his own business and hired recovering addicts. He worked hard and taught his employees trade skills that they could use to be successful anywhere. He believed in the potential of every person he hired, and if they ever fell off the wagon, he’d help them get back on. He was also an active volunteer and donor for many organizations. One day when I was 10 or 11, I asked him why he gave away so much of his time, energy, and money, he told me “If you’re not here to make the world a better place, then what are you doing here?” That has stuck with me for my entire life. A few years later, when I was 16, he was murdered by one of the men he had hired who had “fallen off.” My dad was trying to help this man until the final moment. While I hate that my dad was killed, I also cannot think of anything that shows his character more than that. He truly was committed to making the world a better place and helping every person that he could. I strive to be like him every day, and when I second guess myself, I always ask “If you’re not here to make the world a better place, then why are you here?” That helps to center me.
What do you like to do for fun?
I run a nonprofit called Disability EmpowHer Network, an organization that connects, motivates, and guides disabled girls and women to grow, learn, and develop to their highest potential and have the confidence to lead. We believe in a world where girls and women with disabilities recognize their value and believe in their ability to be leaders.
I get to connect disabled girls with successful disabled women mentors all of the time and this brings me a lot of joy. I didn’t have a successful disabled woman mentor in my life until I was 19. I grew up not knowing or seeing anyone like me – not in the media, not in my social circles, nowhere. It would have made a huge difference in my life if I had a disabled woman role model to look up to. I know I am not alone in feeling this way, because since we launched Disability EmpowHer Network, over 300 women from across the world have reached out to tell me that they feel the same way. Now, when I connect a girl with a mentor, I receive letters and emails from the girls and their parents telling me that it has made such a huge difference in their lives.