Disability Inclusion In The Workplace: Michal Shinnar Of JGL Law On How Businesses Make Accommodations For Customers and Employees Who Have a Disability
An Interview With Eric Pines
Be a voracious reader. Read court decisions, but also read court pleadings (remember, they are publicly available). Read other examples of legal writing in your field, such as letters, memos, and discovery from your colleagues and others. This will allow you to learn not only about the substance of law but about the different styles of advocacy, all of which are important to becoming the best lawyer you can be.
As we all know, over the past several years there has been a great deal of discussion about inclusion and diversity in the workplace. One aspect of inclusion not discussed enough is how businesses can be inclusive of people with disabilities. We know that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires businesses to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. What exactly does this look like in practice? What exactly are reasonable accommodations? Aside from what is legally required, what are some best practices that can make a business place feel more welcoming and inclusive of people with disabilities? To address these questions, we are talking to successful business leaders who can share stories and insights from their experience about “How Businesses Make Accommodations for Customers and Employees Who Are Disabled.”
As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Michal Shinnar.
Michal Shinnar, senior counsel at Joseph Greenwald Laake in Greenbelt, Maryland, focuses her practice on all aspects of employment law, including discrimination, disability accommodations, and whistleblowing. Michal was a member of the litigation team that won the highly publicized $43.8 million settlement in Breen v. FAA, which made history as the highest settlement in an age discrimination case against the federal government. She is the chair of the Disability Rights Practice Group for the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA). She can be reached at [email protected].
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory” and how you ended up where you are?
I went to Barnard College, where I majored in psychology and history. After that, I worked in clinical psychiatry research, which was a fascinating field, but I ultimately realized that it wasn’t what I wanted to do professionally over my whole career and that being a lawyer and advocate suited me better. I then went to Fordham Law School, where I was a Stein Scholar public interest law fellow. From the beginning, I was interested in employment law, and it is what I have continued to pursue ever since.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
I believe it is important to be analytical, a lifelong learner, and be able to work with many different types of people. Employment law is a complex field involving both the ever-changing landscape of the laws and court decisions, as well as matters regarding civil procedure, evidence, and others. You have to be able to think analytically and thoroughly about all of these matters to analyze and build a case. Being a lifelong learner is crucial to understanding the ever-evolving field, as well as gaining new strategic ways to approach cases. Finally, I work with a wide range of people — not only judges, mediators, and opposing counsel, but I also represent employees across the socioeconomic spectrum, from C-suite executives to low-wage workers. My clients have a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences, beliefs, and political orientations. I also have to work with potential witnesses, experts, and others. Being able to interact with such a wide variety of people is a key part of this job.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
I feel lucky to have a plate full of exciting projects and meaningful cases. Right now, I’m working on a wide variety of employment cases, everything from individuals subjected to discrimination and retaliation in the workplace, to a class action for employees not paid minimum wage to a large race discrimination class action that has received a fair amount of media coverage. I find it really rewarding to be able to take on cases for both individuals harmed by discrimination and a class of people subject to discriminatory policies and practices.
Fantastic. Let’s now shift to our discussion about inclusion. Can you tell our readers a bit about your experience working with initiatives to promote diversity and inclusion? Can you share a story with us?
I represent people who were subjected to discrimination in the workplace because of sex, race, religion, disability, or age. I work to make them whole for the discrimination they experienced and to have the employer take steps to prevent such discrimination from occurring again.
One example involving the ADA that comes to mind is a matter in which I represented an employee who was facing a number of disability discrimination issues at work, including that a number of areas of her workplace were not physically accessible to her, and the employer had long refused to do anything about it. I was able to resolve her case, and as part of the settlement, the employer agreed to make all these changes, which benefited not only her but future employees with mobility disabilities. Whenever I pass by that workplace, I think about the difference the case made for so many people and am proud to have represented the person who stood up to make this happen.
This may be obvious to you, but it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you articulate to our readers a few reasons why it is so important for a business or organization to have an inclusive work culture?
I think Congress said it very powerfully in the preamble to the ADA. To paraphrase, Congress said that disabilities “in no way diminish a person’s right to fully participate in all aspects of society,” yet there has been a long history of discrimination against individuals with disabilities which continues to persist, including against employees with disabilities in the workplace. Businesses are a major part of our society and public sphere, and therefore play a crucial role in ensuring the promises of the ADA. We want a society where individuals are not discriminated against in employment opportunities because of their disabilities. That’s why the ADA requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations and prohibits employers from discriminating in other ways, such as stereotyping people with disabilities as less capable at their jobs.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires businesses to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what this looks like in practice? What exactly are reasonable accommodations? Can you please share a few examples?
The ADA requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. This means individuals who can perform their job duties with or without a reasonable accommodation. A reasonable accommodation can be any of a wide number of things that allow a person to do their job that doesn’t pose an undue burden on the employer (such as a cost that is too high for the overall company). Some examples include various types of equipment or software, such as an ergonomic chair or a screen reader. It can be services provided, such as a sign language interpreter. Accommodations can also be schedule modifications, such as meal breaks, medication breaks, and a different start and/or end time to their workday. Sometimes the potential accommodations will be obvious to the employee and/or the employer; sometimes the employee has identified the problem but is not sure what accommodations may exist to address it. The ADA requires that both the employee and the employer engage in an interactive process to determine what accommodations will work for both sides.
Aside from what is legally required, what are some best practices that can make a business place feel more welcoming to and inclusive of people with disabilities? If you can, please share a few examples.
In my experience, the best employers take the approach that they want to ensure that employees with disabilities receive the accommodations that they need and see this as an important part of allowing employees to best contribute to the company mission. They are flexible and creative when thinking about reasonable accommodations, and they set up their reasonable accommodation approval process to facilitate quickly providing accommodations, as opposed to finding ways to deny them. They also have good systems in place where HR can override the decision of an individual manager regarding reasonable accommodations to ensure that the company policies and ADA are being followed and that accommodations aren’t being denied due to the ignorance and/or bias of one manager. All employers should strive for this. Notably, employees of these companies rarely contact an employment lawyer like me.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started My Career”?
In no particular order:
First, be a voracious reader. Read court decisions, but also read court pleadings (remember, they are publicly available). Read other examples of legal writing in your field, such as letters, memos, and discovery from your colleagues and others. This will allow you to learn not only about the substance of law but about the different styles of advocacy, all of which are important to becoming the best lawyer you can be.
Second, find lawyers to work with whose skills and values you admire. Law is a profession that you need to learn through mentorship. Some of it can be learned from reading and classes, but so much of lawyering happens off paper, from client conversations to phone calls, negotiations, and trial advocacy skills like depositions and examining witnesses. The best way to learn how to do these things is from observing them and being able to ask a senior attorney questions about their tactics.
Third, to paraphrase Judge David Tatel of the D.C. Circuit in his recent memoir, get involved in an organization of lawyers whose mission you support. This will give you access to continuing education, as well as a network of colleagues and potential mentors. Make extra efforts to go to in-person events and/or volunteer for committees and projects.
Fourth, go to events where judges are speaking. It is so valuable to hear perspectives from the bench.
Fifth, don’t be afraid to start a job that may not be in the place or practice area that you see as your long-term plan, as long as you’re getting experiences that build your legal skills. These skills are transferable. And you never know — you may find that your ideas about your ideal job will change.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I think big movements to reach the most amount of people are important. But I also think that so much starts with what is in our more immediate power to fix. Take care of injustice where you see it, even if it is just injustice to one person. That not only matters to that one individual, but it also has a broader ripple effect of demonstrating that such injustices will not be tolerated. I see this very actively in my work. Perhaps the best way to summarize is this: Think globally, act locally, and when you can, act globally too.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can follow me on LinkedIn. I also regularly speak on panels for lawyers about the ADA and other employment law matters. You can also find me on my firm’s website and blog.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!
About the Interviewer: Eric L. Pines is a nationally recognized federal employment lawyer, mediator, and attorney business coach. He represents federal employees and acts as in-house counsel for over fifty thousand federal employees through his work as a federal employee labor union representative. A formal federal employee himself, Mr. Pines began his federal employment law career as in-house counsel for AFGE Local 1923 which is in Social Security Administration’s headquarters and is the largest federal union local in the world. He presently serves as AFGE 1923’s Chief Counsel as well as in-house counsel for all FEMA bargaining unit employees and numerous Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs unions.
While he and his firm specialize in representing federal employees from all federal agencies and in reference to virtually all federal employee matters, his firm has placed special attention on representing Veteran Affairs doctors and nurses hired under the authority of Title. He and his firm have a particular passion in representing disabled federal employees with their requests for medical and religious reasonable accommodations when those accommodations are warranted under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (ADA). He also represents them with their requests for Federal Employee Disability Retirement (OPM) when an accommodation would not be possible.
Mr. Pines has also served as a mediator for numerous federal agencies including serving a year as the Library of Congress’ in-house EEO Mediator. He has also served as an expert witness in federal court for federal employee matters. He has also worked as an EEO technical writer drafting hundreds of Final Agency Decisions for the federal sector.
Mr. Pines’ firm is headquartered in Houston, Texas and has offices in Baltimore, Maryland and Atlanta, Georgia. His first passion is his wife and five children. He plays classical and rock guitar and enjoys playing ice hockey, running, and biking. Please visit his websites at www.pinesfederal.com and www.toughinjurylawyers.com. He can also be reached at [email protected].
Disability Inclusion In The Workplace: Michal Shinnar Of JGL Law On How Businesses Make… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.