New report launch: Covid-19

Greater flexibility could enhance access to the profession for disabled lawyers

Our new research on how disabled lawyers have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic shows increased remote working and more flexibility with reasonable adjustments could make the legal profession more accessible.

During the Covid-19 lockdown, many law firms, legal businesses and in-house teams began working from home for all staff – a reasonable adjustment which many disabled lawyers had requested before the pandemic.

A survey of over 100 disabled lawyers, launched by the Law Society of England and Wales in partnership with the Legally Disabled Research Team based at Cardiff University, found working from home during the Covid-19 outbreak enabled the majority of respondents to manage their disability more effectively. 70% of those surveyed would prefer to continue working remotely in the long-term.

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25th May 201925th May 2019

Revised research timetable

Legally Disabled project secures further funding

We are very pleased to announce that we have secured further funding from Cardiff University that will enable us to extend the timescale and activities of the Legally Disabled research project.

This will enable us to do more work around disseminating the research and engaging with organisations across the legal profession to ensure that our findings and recommendations have greater impact.

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25th December 201825th December 2018

Season’s Greetings!

Project update

As we send our best wishes to everyone over the Christmas holidays, here is a quick progress update.

Following a successful series of focus groups and over fifty five one-to-one interviews, we are delighted to update you on the progress of the research.

Eight focus groups took place early in 2018 in London, Manchester, Cardiff and Birmingham with disabled legal professionals including paralegals, solicitors, barristers, judges, trainees and retirees.

We recently completed the second stage of the project – one to one interviews. These explored individual experiences in more depth. We are currently finalising the analysis of the interviews to draw out the key research themes. There is so much useful information from the interviews!

What next?

Over the first few weeks of 2019, the report on the initial findings of the research will be drafted. A questionnaire will also be developed and disseminated as widely as possible to identify how common certain experiences are for disabled legal professionals.

Later in the year we will hold a conference to share and discuss the findings of the research.

A Research Reference Group consisting of disabled legal professionals from a diversity of backgrounds have supported us with the ongoing development and implementation of the project.

Thank you to all who have taken part in the interviews and focus groups. Your openness about your experiences has been incredibly valuable and will enable us to produce a report and recommendations that we hope will have an impact on improving how the legal professional includes disabled people.

We’d love to talk to you!

If your group, network or firm would like us to come along and discuss our findings over the Spring and Summer please do get in touch. We also value all support that you can give with sharing the questionnaire and research findings as we progress the project.

Many more people have expressed an interest in being involved in other ways. If you haven’t already been in touch and you’d like to be involved, you can reach us on info@legallydisabled.com

Please take a look around the website to find out how you can participate and follow the progress of the work.