From Visionary TV Drama to Real Life: At Baker Botts, Employees with Cognitive Disabilities Earn Valued Roles as Law Firm Employees

In 1994, after eight seasons, the television drama L.A. Law ended. Through the character of Benny Stulwicz, it had introduced millions of viewers to the visionary possibility that someone with a cognitive disability could effectively work in a law firm – and earn a valued role within its workplace culture. Now, in 2007, there is a real-life law firm that has validated and even surpassed that vision. Baker Botts L.L.P. is a Texas-based law firm that was established in 1840. Based in Houston TX, it now has a worldwide network of offices and employs over 750 lawyers.

Three years ago, Baker Botts began to proactively hire people with cognitive disabilities in several of their offices. As explained in the “Diversity” section of their website; “In July 2004, the firm began an initiative to hire employees with special needs, individuals who with training could contribute to the productivity of the firm in spite of their varying challenges. We consider law firms to be particularly well suited for a number of reasons: we offer a relatively safe, quiet and professional working environment; we have a highly educated, caring and sophisticated work force; and we have work that needs to be done which, with mentoring and training, can be done by individuals with special needs. Our efforts in this regard provide us with a unique way to add to the diversity of our work force and, at the same time, give something back to the communities in which we work and live.”

The Washington D.C. office of Baker Botts L.L.P. presently employs three employees with cognitive disabilities. We recently spoke with Kathryn Giordano, the Director of Administration, and Patrick Berry who is a Partner.

OBLN: Your company has been gaining recognition for its practice of proactively hiring people with disabilities. How did all of this start?

Kathryn Giordano: It all started in our Houston office. The partner in charge of the Houston office at the time, Walt Smith, wanted his son Jeffrey to have the benefit of a summer work experience. (His son has a cognitive disability.) He asked the managing partner if he could hire his son for the summer – and pay him out of his own pocket. This all took place and it went very well.

At the end of the summer, Walt was going around the office thanking people for helping Jeff and he was amazed at the response. Overwhelmingly, people said; “Don’t thank us. We thank you! He gave us more than we gave him.”

About four years ago, after Walt Smith himself became Managing Partner of the firm, he asked all of the Directors of Administration in our domestic offices to hire at least one employee with a cognitive disability. We have all done that. Here in Washington we have hired three people, there are two in New York, one in Austin, one in Houston, and two in Dallas.

OBLN: Pat, I understand that your daughter has worked in the Washington office. Can you tell us about that?

Patrick Berry: My daughter, Mason, worked here for the summer when all this first started. She was in high school at the time. Kathy (Kathryn Giordano) knows her and asked me what Mason was going to be doing for the summer. I told her that Mason was likely going to do volunteer work at a library near where we live. Kathy responded with; “Maybe Mason would be interested in working in our library.”

My first reaction was “Oh no. Mason could never work at a law firm.” As a parent of a child with a disability, you tend to be very protective and sometimes that protectiveness can result in pigeonholing. Kathy, though, is very persistent. She explained the request that Walt had made just weeks earlier. She noted that Mason had experience working in a library, and that our librarians could use some help. Reluctantly, I agreed.

Mason came down and had an interview with Kathy and our HR person. She then interviewed with our two librarians. They went to lunch with Mason. At the time, I told Kathy “This is the first time that Mason has ever gone out to lunch with total strangers in her whole life!” Mason was subsequently hired and she worked full-time for the whole summer. One of the things that drove her crazy, as you can imagine, was having her father make twenty-five trips through the library every day. We have the ability to look down on the library from the floor above and as I stood there watching one day, one of my partners came up and said “You’ve got to let her go Dad. You’ve got to let her go.” 

The following summer, she was hired again to fill in for an employee here, a former classmate of hers, who was on vacation. That was the extent of Mason’s employment with our firm. This summer she is working in the records department of another law firm here in town.

OBLN: That is terrific. The work experience that she already had with your firm probably looked great on her resume.

Patrick Berry: There is no question about that. But the experience was just as important to us. It gave us the opportunity to see how great these experiences can be for the whole office – not just because we can feel good about helping someone, but because it is also a practical way to do business. Using Mason’s experience, if you asked a librarian what they dislike the most about their job they would probably say, “It is going around picking up books, logging them back into the system, and re-shelving them.” If you were to ask Mason what she liked most about working in the library, she would probably say, “I love picking up the books from the book drops and re-shelving them.” That illustrates how you can match up the abilities of these kids to jobs that have to be done. This isn’t make-work. This is work that has to be done. This is a win-win for the employee and for the firm. Don’t you agree Kathy?

Kathryn Giordano: Absolutely. Every experience that we have had has been so positive! We have three employees with disabilities right now. Two are permanent full-time employees and we have a student who works on a daily part-time schedule. Their learning abilities are all very different but they are matched to jobs that they like to do.  They are doing jobs that they really get a sense of fulfillment from – and so do we! They all do their jobs well and consistently.

Dan Ricchi worked here several summers and Christmas seasons. His parents are in the restaurant business so we started him in the catering area – helping our conference services staff. He did great. The next time he came back, we wanted to give him other experiences, so we had him working in office services and supply. We also had him work in the library. There were parts of those jobs that he clearly did not want to do. When he graduated from school and we hired him permanently, we hired him in the catering area – helping out in conference services and in office services related to maintaining our kitchens and coffee areas. Whenever I pass through these areas it is a pleasure because, thanks to Dan, everything is always neat and clean and orderly.

You never want to forget to give these individuals, like all employees, the opportunity to grow in their jobs. We know that Dan loves computers. Down the road, with training, data entry may be something else that Dan can do for us.

OBLN: You said that you also employ a student on a part-time basis?

Kathryn Giordano: Yes, we regularly employ one student through the Fairfax County Transitions to Work Program. Mir Azad works in our library, shelving books, inputting information on the computers and making deliveries.

OBLN: So you truly believe that beyond just addressing the “social responsibility” of giving these individuals a chance to be in the workforce, your company has really benefited from including these employees?

Patrick Berry: In filling these kinds of jobs, we have the opportunity to hire people with disabilities whom we have found to be loyal, responsible and very enthusiastic – or we can hire other folks who are more likely to be sullen, not as responsible, and not nearly as dedicated. Just from a business perspective, that decision is a no-brainer.

When you are a lawyer, totally wrapped up in whatever it is that you are working on, so consumed with the importance of it… and you step out into the hall and bump into someone like David Hughes, our mail carrier, it changes your whole mental and emotional attitude. You may have been worried, annoyed or frustrated… all of a sudden that friendly encounter puts everything back into perspective. It is a wonderful attitude adjustment. It is the kind of important qualitative difference that people like David can bring to your organization.

These employees all take their jobs very, very seriously. That is what so great from our firm’s perspective – we have employees who are truly proud of their work, people who are so proud to have a job - and so excited about their work. For instance, David’s job begins at 8:30 AM but he routinely arrives at 8:00 AM… just to get ready.

Kathryn Giordano: David will not be late! He worked for twenty-one years at U.S. Airways and when they closed their Arlington operations, we hired him to work in our mail room. He is the best mail clerk that we have ever had. We also just added to his responsibilities. He takes them so seriously. He is very diligent, careful, and responsible. He checks everything twice and makes sure that it is perfect. David is also very social and interacts well with everyone in the office. Everybody likes David.

OBLN: Patrick, you initially thought that a law firm wasn’t a good place for someone with a cognitive disability to work. I take it that you have changed your opinion.

Patrick Berry: It is actually an ideal place for these individuals to work. The people who work in law firms are educated. They are sophisticated. They are very polite. It is essentially a very civil and supportive working environment.

OBLN: Kathy, I understand that you are also encouraging other law firms in the D.C. area to hire people with cognitive disabilities.

Kathryn Giordano: I’ve reached out to several other firms and I’ve sent them resumes. Summer hiring programs are wonderful. I encourage other firms to get started that way, if they have not hired a person with a cognitive disability before. There is a lot of enthusiasm. We keep pushing and reaching out. We’ve seen some progress.

Patrick Berry: Kathy is being too modest. She has done an incredible job of meeting with her peers at law firms in town. She is making presentations on our experience - creating the interest and doing lots of follow-up. As Kathy keeps speaking to these other firms, we hope that it will become common for every significant-sized law firm in this city to have one, if not two or three, cognitively disabled people working there.

Read the article: ‘Special’ Employees Fill More Than Support Roles at Baker Botts

Read the Washington Post article on Baker Botts: Beyond Cognitive Disability Barriers

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