This episode features an employment lawyer discussing disability rights, workplace discrimination, reasonable accommodations, and legal protections for parents and individuals with disabilities. Gain insights into navigating legal challenges and advocating for rights in the workplace.

keywords: disability rights, workplace discrimination, reasonable accommodations, FMLA, ADA, employment law, disability advocacy, legal protections, parent rights, disability discrimination cases

key topics

• Disability discrimination in the workplace
• Legal protections under ADA and FMLA
• Reasonable accommodations and employer obligations
• Parent involvement in adult disability cases
• Retaliation and harassment protections

takeaways

• Disability rights laws like ADA and FMLA provide strong protections but are often not fully enforced.
• Employers are legally required to provide reasonable accommodations unless it causes undue hardship.
• Parents of adult children with disabilities have rights to advocate and seek workplace protections.
• Retaliation is the most common complaint in disability discrimination cases.
• Using AI and proper documentation can strengthen legal cases.

guest nameDerek Smith

titles

• Understanding Disability Rights in the Workplace: Legal Insights
• How to Fight Discrimination and Secure Accommodations at Work

Sound Bites

• "Disability discrimination is still rampant."
• "Harassment can include hostile work environments."
• "You have rights, and you should act on them."

Chapters

00:00Supporting Parents in Their Journey

00:00Navigating Family and Medical Leave Act

19:02The Role of AI in Legal Research

21:17Challenges for Caregivers in the Workplace

25:23Advocacy for Parents of Disabled Adults

29:03Difficult Cases in Disability Discrimination

33:21Affordability of Legal Services

Resources

• Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
• Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
• EEOC - Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

• Guest links
• Derek Smith Website: https://discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com/new-york-city/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derek-smith-b1192a111/
• Email: derek@dereksmithlaw.com

https://specialedrising.com/

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All right, Derek Smith. Thanks so much for being here today. Welcome to the show.

Hey Mark, thank you very much for having me. I'm really looking forward to our talk.

Yeah, me too, me too. This is an area that I feel we, you I haven't had the opportunity to touch upon in the past and I'm excited to have somebody with your experience on the show to finally speak to it.

So I think people are under the impression that because of the advancement of disability rights through the years that there's a lot more fairness out in the world and more equality. And I don't think that's really the truth. And so I wondered, know, people's impressions are such that what's the reality and how common is disability discrimination? Can you speak to that? Do you have an idea or just your impressions of it?

Okay, so yes, absolutely. I'm glad you mentioned that. There are laws and then there's reality.

I say that age discrimination is rampant and it's one of the most common forms of discrimination out there in the workplace. But just as high, if not higher, is disability discrimination. And this is one of the things where I see employers all the time, let's say they don't know about an employee's disability.

And this disability could be anything. It could be a visible disability. You know, they're in a wheelchair. It could be something that's not visible. You know, let's say they have anxiety. You know, I recently had a case with somebody with OCD. It could even be Asperger's. It could be anything. the second an employer finds out that an employee has a disability, it gets scary.

because you see the discrimination happen. You see a paper trail develop. You see, you know what? I didn't see that this person didn't have at least two years of sales experience. the disability discrimination rears its ugly head and what employers need to understand and what employees need to understand that this is a right, that they have the right to a workplace.

that provides them with a reasonable accommodation. And from a practical standpoint, okay, let's put the law aside for a second. How about being fair, being nice, being an employer who isn't that nice? Have you ever gone to Disney World, Mark?

I have been to Epcot and haven't actually been to... What?

The greatest, right?

The greatest place in the world. You got to go to different countries. ⁓ When you say around the world, did you do the one drink in each country?

yeah, absolutely. You get to go around the world.

Well, I didn't drink in every country, but I had some. I won't lie.

But it is an amazing place. But one of the things that I really

admire and appreciate from Disney is that you will see people everywhere with disabilities working there. And it actually not only is fair and a right of the employees, but it's something that elevates Disney in the eyes of the public.

It's something that helps their image. And so I say to all the employers out there who are saying, no, I don't want somebody with a disability. They're just going to cause problems. First of all, they're not going to cause problems. Give them the reasonable accommodation, evaluate them on their merits. Look, they could be great as is. You know, they could also suck. They could just be in, just because you have a disability doesn't mean you're a good employee.

Right, like anybody, like anyone.

Exactly.

Exactly.

But I say to employers, it's a good thing to treat people fairly and abide by the law and provide that reasonable accommodation just like Disney does.

no, absolutely. mean, the bottom line is we could all be disabled in like a minute. It's like we could all cross to the other side of where we are now at any moment during our lives, because we can get into an accident, something can happen to us health-wise, and we could be the disabled person. So the idea that we aren't educated about that aspect and we all think that because we're born physically and maybe emotionally or...

You know, we're all little emotionally messed up, but you know, even mentally fairly, fairly, functional that that can't go away in a second. it's we're not the super being we're human beings and we're all, we're all susceptible to anything. So the fact that we don't have that consideration always boggles my mind because, people come in all shapes and sizes all around us. So, mean, where does the discrimination end? Right.

Very true, Mark.

I mean, we could go all the way back to the really horrible periods in life with authoritarians and then you had to be a certain type of person. So I mean, it gets crazy and that's extreme, but the idea that because a person has a disability doesn't mean they have anything to offer is crazy to me. Yeah. Yes.

Oh, of course, the employees are missing out. It's very short

sighted. So, you could have people who have a different viewpoint, who are geniuses, who, you know, get along really well with your clients, your customers. Don't miss out on that because you're a jerk and you want to retaliate or not provide them with a reasonable accommodation. It's truly something that's good for business and it's the right thing to do.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I agree. I think it is good for business too because it shows you that you're open and welcoming of anyone and everyone. And to me, that's going to bring in more business, let alone you're doing the right thing.

I was at a restaurant, my son just graduated from Syracuse. We were up there. We went to a restaurant Saturday night and ⁓ the hostess had one arm and her other arm was kind of short. And I said, that's great. I said, it made me look at this restaurant in a better light. It made me think, you know, I'm really glad that they didn't let this interfere with

Congratulations.

Mm-hmm. Right.

their hiring decision. So, yeah, and I hope, look, I hope other people feel the same way that I do. And I think they do actually. You'll find some people, who would look at something like that and say, my God, I can't believe they let her be a hostess here. But I think that's the exception, not the norm.

Sure, Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, no, I think so too. Small minded people out there everywhere. what's a simple accommodation that employees deny people with disabilities? is there like anything that's more common than others as far as accommodations go?

So this is where we get our jobs from. ⁓ everything in law comes down to what's reasonable. And the employer must provide a reasonable accommodation. And what that means is something that doesn't cause them an undue hardship. That's the language. And so where can they deny? Let's say somebody says,

Okay.

Very typical, I want to work from home.

Sometimes that could be considered a reasonable accommodation. Why do have to work? Do you have problems getting to work in a car? Do you have problems walking from the train station to the office? Is it just impossible for you? But there's a whole other aspect to that, that employers do have a right to have a business run in a reasonably sound manner the way they want to have it run as long as it's, again, reasonable.

And there's a lot to be said for in-person working. There's collaboration. I can walk into somebody's office and say, hey, can you help me out with this particular matter? And we talk. Or I'm calling a meeting right now. Or let's take a look at your computer screen and you see how it says this over here. So one of the ways that employers are denying requests is working from home.

Most of the time they get away with it. Sometimes they don't. I'll tell you when they don't get away with it is when they provide the ability for some people to work from home and others not. So let's say, yeah, you want to work from home three days a week, go ahead. But the person who's got, you know, leg deformity, they don't provide that too. That's clear discrimination because of, you know, having a disability.

Right, right, right.

pretty blatant. Yeah. you know much about the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act at all? Do you know anything about that?

⁓ sure. The ADA. Yes.

Exactly. Yeah. Because

I would think that would factor in now because What I understand is it made it easier for people to be recognized as having a disability. So the focus shifts from proving you're disabled to whether you were treated fairly. That's what I'm understanding about it.

Absolutely, and I tell I teach my attorneys and the law has changed although there's a lot of old case law before the amendment act came out which said Does it does it significantly impact the daily living activities? And is it really a disability can it be cured? Can it be treated all of that doesn't matter now? Almost everything is a disability nowadays, you know if it affects you

Right. Good.

physically, mentally, neurologically, neuromuscularly. And that's great. And there are lot of disabilities that are visible and a lot of disabilities that are not. ⁓ So the good thing about the Amendments Act is that it does provide protection for almost everyone with a disability rather than having to jump through hoops to get covered.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, okay, so you don't have to, you don't have to, the burden of proof isn't necessarily what it used to be.

Correct. We go on to the next thing. Reasonable accomodation

Mm-hmm, which is what it seems to comes down to. It's kind of like the reasonable accommodation is the main crux of it all.

100%. There's actually like a few aspects of disability law. So there's one, you could be denied a job, not hired, you could be fired, you could suffer another adverse employment action they call it because of your disability. So I call that frank discrimination, discrete discrimination where you are being discriminated against based on that disability.

Mm-hmm.

Then there's the failure to provide reasonable accommodation, which we just spoke about. And then there's a third form of disability discrimination, which is harassment, hostile work environment. I once represented a woman with a disability who, I won't go into her disability, but her boss would tell her, why don't you take a lap around the office? She had a physical disability and she was required

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Wow.

throughout the day to take laps around the office. I know, I'm serious. By the way, the fact that you're like shocked by that tells me like you would be blown away by some of the cases that I, there are stupid people, mean people who just treat people with such disrespect, whether it be any of the protected classes, race, religion, gender.

Are you kidding me? my god, that's...

I would imagine I would be.

but especially disability. it could be somebody with, who's in a wheelchair. They could be called even like, hey, how's the gimp today or something. I promise you, you hear this stuff, it exists and it's real and it's horrible. But I love, the law gives us two great things. We can sue to get,

the people, victims compensation for that. But even more important are punitive damages, can, which can punish the employer or the people who do that so that they don't do it again. And, and actually it's supposed to send the message to other employers. Watch out.

people who...

Okay, because you went into this area and I was actually going to ask you about that as far as, know, coworkers and clients and, like the workplace culture and so That's what you're addressing here is you can go after the people that are actually discriminating within that it just aren't the employer but are actually coworkers as well.

So in law, I teach all my attorneys, whenever you get a case, you look at the harasser. Is the harasser a supervisor or is the harasser a coworker? If it's a supervisor, it's a whole analysis that you go through, but it generally starts with the premise that the employer, the company is automatically liable. When it comes to coworkers, the employer is not automatically liable.

let's say I have a disability, I'm at my job and my coworker is making fun of me. Or my coworker is taking away my special monitor that allows me to see better. Let's say I have a vision problem and if my coworker does that, the employer is not responsible unless I complain.

Mm-hmm.

to HR, to my boss, to any supervisor, and they fail to do something about it. And then it continues. And only then. So it's like, there's an expression in law, every dog gets a free bite. ⁓ And so it's kind of like every coworker gets a free bite at you. Then you have to complain, the employer's on notice. If it happens again, then the employer is responsible for something like that.

You

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Okay, because that could really dissolve into something horrible if the person's allowed to continue to get away with that kind of stuff.

And I would hope

the employer would take disciplinary action and possibly even terminate that coworker. Yeah.

Yeah, I

would think it's very intimidating for a lot of people too, because if you have a disability that you're, you've been struggling to get work and you get a job and then suddenly this kind of thing happens to you, people start to, discriminate in whatever way they're doing it. To actually report it means that if they're not educated enough, if they don't know what, maybe the question is what do people need to know about their own rights? Because

Some people, I know I had a family that I work with and they're deaf, the couple is deaf and the mom works in a supermarket and she had an injury and she needed to take time off and she was afraid for months to request it because she thought she might get fired because she requested it and I kept telling her, no, it's within your rights to be able to do this, you know, have an injury and there's a process to go through. So I helped them with that, but.

That's just an example. she didn't know, then there's a lot of people out there that don't know what their rights are. Could you kind of talk a little bit about what position people are in when they go into these jobs, what they have behind them to support themselves? As far as the law goes.

Sure.

So everyone's equipped with the federal law. We have two laws principally that protect us. One is the Americans with Disabilities Act and that prevents your employer and other places of public accommodation from discriminating against you because of your disability and entitles you to a reasonable accommodation as well.

States, that's the floor. States generally have higher levels of protection. And for example, you don't need 15 or more employees or the damages you can claim are greater. So in general, it's always wise to pursue your state rights in conjunction with your federal rights because it provides you with more protection.

Mm-hmm.

Florida accepted. Florida just really does not have the best employee rights in this respect. But New York, California, New Jersey, Philadelphia, these states, cities, they have rights that protect you, whether it be as a parent, you can't be discriminated against based on your parental status. You can't be discriminated against based on your...

Hmm.

association, this is also federal, part, with somebody with a disability. So let's say you have a child who has a disability and that child can be over 18, under 18, it doesn't matter, but if you are discriminated against at work just by the mere fact that you have a relative or someone you associate with, doesn't even have to be a relative, who has a disability.

You are protected. You've got amazing protection and you know I remind people of that all the time. You can't be discriminated against and also take let's say a little further. You can't be discriminated against based on an actual or perceived disability of the person you associate with. So let's say your boss thinks that your son, child, whatever has a particular disability.

Wow.

wild.

But let's say they don't and they discriminate because of that. It doesn't matter. You're still protected. But to close this out and give you some more protection that the employees have, one of the things that I love is the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Yeah, okay, this is, we're getting into area I was actually gonna ask, go ahead. Yeah. No, no, no, no, it's totally fine, go for it, this is a fluid, fluid conversation.

good. All right. let's shut up and you can ask him that I'll ⁓ jump right in. Fluid.

All right. So the Family and Medical Leave Act says that you are entitled by law up to 12 weeks unpaid leave to care for the serious health condition of a close family member, such as a child or a parent.

and it is unpaid, so let's get that out of the way, but you're allowed to take off, take care of these issues, and they are required to return you to your same or equivalent position. There's a couple catches here. One, you have to be working there for at least a year. Two,

the employer has to have at least 50 employees within a 75 mile radius, they say as the crow flies. But again, almost all of the states that I just mentioned, they have their own laws and they're much more lenient. It may be 20 employees. may be you only have to be working there for 26 weeks, six months instead of the full year.

So it's a good idea to always check your local law and see what it says. So do employees come to their jobs with an arsenal of protections that can help them, whether it be for their own disability or for that of a loved one they're caring for? Yes. And they should feel relatively confident in that. Am I going to say that you're guaranteed that you're not going to be discriminated against or?

retaliated against when you have these conditions or you make these requests? No. And that is why the EEOC's number one complaint that comes through their offices is retaliation. So it is possible that it's going to happen, but just know that if it does, your friendly lawyer down the street who knows this stuff can do something about it.

Yeah, and for those that don't really know, what's the best way for people to understand that they have these rights? Because it's not like you don't go to school for this as a parent. It's like a class or a pamphlet that you read. So what's the best way to kind of get the word to people? Do you have an idea how people can be better educated when it comes to this stuff?

So I'm glad you mentioned that because I'm going to mention something that we're all doing these days. We all have this relationship with AI right now. And some people can't even make a decision in their life without consulting their best friend AI, Claude, Chet, whoever, Grok. And there's a recent decision out of the federal court in New York.

Mm-hmm.

You

which says that anything they look up is discoverable in the case. Meaning, the other side, your employer, if you have to bring a case, a charge, whatever, the other side can get that. You gotta be really careful. That's number one. And number two, AI's pretty good, but I would dare say every single time it produces results, something's wrong. It's wrong about something.

I tell my attorneys, everyone, it's legal malpractice not to use AI. Use it, enjoy it, but it's bigger malpractice not to check it. ⁓ So at least it'll give you, okay, it said this, that, and the other thing. Let me look that up. Let's see what happens. ⁓ So use AI, get your information, but know that whatever you type in there, the other side, if it becomes a lawsuit,

you

Right. Right.

can get a copy of those searches. Okay? And that could hurt you. That could really hurt your case. I think a better move would be do your research on your own. Take a look at some of the articles that you find online. The best move, free consultation with an employment lawyer. Call an employment lawyer who's knowledgeable in this kind of stuff and say, this is what happened to me. What do you think? And make sure that that lawyer

Mm-hmm. okay.

Hmm.

Okay.

focuses not on, I got a case, I could do something with it, focuses on the practicality, what makes sense for you in your particular situation.

Okay, that's a great answer. you. Speaking of practicality, are families that, there's parents that have to go to work, but they have a child with disability, and they may need to be home earlier during the day. They need an accommodation as far as their work hours go. And I know not every job you can do remotely. So have you run into this problem before and how would you respond to it?

oddly enough and it's really sad, caregivers don't have that right. So what they do have the right to is intermittent family and medical leave. So let's say that they have to take their child to ABA therapy. That'll work. That's fine. But the actual right to, you need to give me better hours because I have a child that I have to go home and be there with.

Mm-hmm.

that parents don't have that right. Most employers, I believe, will give that. Very often, a good employment lawyer can parlay that into, you're just discriminating. You just fired this person because they associate with someone with a disability. So there are ways to package that with other forms of illegal discrimination. But for the most part,

You don't really, in California, there's a case in California where in Dicta, in like a footnote of a decision, there may be protection there of what we're talking about. But just know that you don't have the confidence to go to the employer and say, you have to give me off at three o'clock every day so I can be home with my child when they get off from school. You don't get that.

Okay, yeah, and I guess too, it depends upon the employer. Some employers might be a little bit more gracious and be able to work it out with you. I guess that's just something that you to kind of have that conversation.

Right.

And I got something. I'm an employer as well. I employ lots of people in my various offices throughout the country. How about be a good employer? How about get your employees to like you? know, it's where people are happy at their jobs. They do a better job. crazy, it saves me. I know.

you

What are you crazy? Eric, where's that coming from?

I never thought about that because it never happened.

So I also trained supervisors, and when they first become a supervisor in my office, they give instructions and you didn't obey the instructions and I'm telling you to do X, Y and Z. I'm like, dude, talk to these people, find out why, have a regular conversation, show that it's in their best interest first. mean, like there does reach a point.

of course, a boiling point where it's like, look, these are the things that you didn't do. If you don't do it, you're fired, you know? But before then, it's not do as I say and that's that. But I see that you fully understand what I'm talking about. We as employers and other employers try to be nicer. It's gonna come back to help you, not hurt you.

Of course. Of course.

Right.

I totally do.

walking around barking orders to everyone and requiring like, you have to work until five o'clock every day and I'm not letting you go home to take care of your autistic son who needs ABA therapy. my God, you're an idiot. Help out this person and just have a little leeway.

Yeah, I've been saying it for years and I've said it on the show before too. mean, if we had, mean, I, cause I had different administrators for the years of my job and some were better than others when it came to, trying to find that connection with you. know, others were just like, this is what I want you to do and you'll do it and you'll walk around, nervous and stressed and all that kind of stuff. And you don't even want to go to work, let alone do what you're supposed to do. you, like you said, you're, I've always said too,

that you give one compliment, that person's gonna give you 10 times the effort than they gave you the day before because it's like, okay, I'm seen and you seem to care. It seems to make a difference. So, mean, it's so simple, right? It seems so simple. Yeah. Yeah. It's so common.

So we've known this, it's like positive reinforcement versus negative reinforcement. Give me a compliment,

don't hit me over the head.

Yeah.

my goodness. It's amazing. I'm not even sure how to phrase this question, but what's going through my mind is when a parent has a child or an adult now who's got a job, who's being discriminated against. have you been in situations where the parents are able to advocate effectively and or do you want them to be part of the process? I'm not even quite sure how to ask the question. just I'm

that whole area of parent involvement with an adult person with disability who's being discriminated against. Is there anything you can say to speak to that? Do you understand what I'm trying to say maybe?

I think I do. So there are two levels of discrimination. There's the discrimination with respect to the child themselves and they're entitled to rights. And they can't be discriminated against in places of public accommodation. They're entitled to reasonable accommodation. And then there's the parents and they're entitled to their rights. As we said before, under the Family Medical Leave Act, the ADA, associational disability.

discrimination and the state cohorts that go along with that. But as far as their involvement, if you have a child with a disability and they need you and you are their primary caregiver, yes, it all rests on you. ⁓ And so not only are you seeking and being involved in protecting their rights, don't forget about yourself at the same time. And yes, get heavily involved.

Mm-hmm. Right.

But by all means, pick up the phone, call a lawyer. Almost all lawyers I know give a free consultation in this area. And I think that very often they think, I just have to accept it. I just have to take it. You don't. Do something about it.

Well,

Thank you for interpreting my vague question. So that basically the first steps they would take would be to speak to a lawyer before they would speak to the employer.

Sure.

who's discriminating against their child.

the, I hear in your, I hear in your tone, a little bit of like, really, is that the way it should be done? Yes. Yes. Yes, it should. So, like I said, every now and then you've got a nice employer who wants to help people and really is interested in, the emotional well-being of all of their employees and, and whatnot. but for the most part it's us.

The parrot. Yep.

Well, yeah, because...

versus them. And, you know, anytime you make a complaint or request for a reasonable accommodation, they go into circle the wagons, self preservation mode, and they want to make sure that they do what they have to do so that they don't get sued. Or if they do get sued, that they have a good defense. So if you have suffered anything, discrimination related or any discrimination,

Mm-hmm.

or sexual harassment or anything that's illegal in the workplace. Yes, your first call should be to a lawyer. Say, hey, this have, and the lawyer's advice may be, look, you don't have a case yet. It's not ripe yet, but I do recommend you file a complaint with your employer in an email so that it's in writing. And sometimes the lawyer will say, let me see the email before you send it so I can make sure it includes the magic language, reasonable accommodation.

This is my disability. If it's FMLA, I'm asking for this time off and you have like the dates, et cetera. So yes, Mark, unfortunately we live in a society where if you're suffering something bad at work, it is a good idea to call the lawyer first and see if you can, what your rights are. But if it's something minor and whatnot, go ahead, make that request, make sure it's in writing.

Document every conversation that you've had. Take a little like a journal note. Again, being mindful of the fact that whatever you're putting down there, the other side will have an opportunity to get that in discovery if the case moves forward.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

What's one of the harder cases that you've had to experience as far as discrimination law against a person with a disability? Something that maybe that's hard to prove.

Sure. Couple things. So one of the cases of which I'm most proud is a case where I represented a woman who, before she came to me, she was turned down by six other law firms because they said the case was too difficult. The case didn't have enough legs to move forward. And when she came to me, I said, my God, this is, this is horrible. Let's do something.

but you can't, okay, you have an answer, okay.

about this. She suffers from a condition called dystonia. Dystonia is like a form of Parkinson's or similar to Parkinson's. It's a movement disorder. And she was a nurse at New York Presbyterian Hospital. And to help her with this dystonia, she had, and this was years ago, a revolutionary device at the time, a deep brain stimulator.

So it was actually like a little computer with wires that would go up into her skull with a probe that goes in that stimulates the brain to stop these, these involuntary movements. And she went about her business after getting this deep brain simulator. She went back to work, but she noticed something that whenever she was, she was an ICU nurse.

Mm-hmm.

So incredible, she's saving lives every single day. And ICUs and big hospitals, have ICU different units all over, whether it the cardiac, the neonatal, the neuro, all of those things. So she notices that when she's working in certain of these units, which are near the MRI machine, which has giant magnets going bop, bop, bop, bop, bop all day long.

Yeah.

it

was setting off her deep brain simulator and sending her into a tizzy, even knocking her out unconscious sometimes. So she said, Hey, can I please have a reasonable accommodation? Would you do me a favor and let me work only in these ICUs? Because whenever I'm near the MRI machine,

it goes off and it really hurts me and I have to get reprogrammed or I'll be unconscious or one of these things. And they didn't, they did not. And ⁓ that's the case that we sued, think there were appeals. We had to just keep on going. took many, many years. We finally got to a trial and we won.

Really, that's insane.

And it ended up being the largest emotional distress verdict in an employment law case ever to be sustained on appeal in the whole U.S. So it was a difficult case. was one that I think a lot of lawyers were looking at it like, I don't know, that seems weird to me. That seems strange. But to me, it just seemed, you know, outright obvious. so there's an example. But Mark, I want to tell you another one that's not so obvious.

Holy cow.

Yeah, sure.

How about people with alcoholism? How about people who have a drug addiction or people who have depression and anxiety? And those are not obvious and yet those are true disabilities and you're entitled to a reasonable accommodation. Now, granted you can't get drunk at work and curse your boss out.

Absolutely.

and say, I'm an alcoholic, I'm allowed to do that. But you are entitled to certain reasonable accommodations.

How would that work for a person with alcoholism?

let's say you need to take time off to go get treatment to go meet me and have an AA meeting. my AA meetings here. I need a reasonable accommodation. I need this time off in the middle of the day to go, go to my meeting. Or it could be, my God, I'm stressing out right now. And, and I'm, I think I want to have a drink and you have to call your sponsor.

Gotcha. Okay.

Okay.

and you say to the boss, look, I apologize, I gotta leave early today. Or it could be, you're at a company function and somebody offers you a drink and you said, no, I don't drink anymore, I'm an alcoholic. Next thing you know, you're getting written up for stupid things and eventually you get fired. That's another example.

Mm-hmm.

That's wild. Okay, that's really, really cool. That's something I hadn't thought about. yeah, I think that, yeah, and unfortunately, but I think it opens up a lot of minds to the spectrum that we're talking about here, right? And yeah, you're doing some amazing work. I mean, I think one of the questions people have is just like affordability when it comes to lawyers, you know, because it can be expensive. there,

Yeah, unfortunately.

Yes, for sure.

Do you work with people when it comes to that?

So I started practicing this law over 30 years ago. And back then, every lawyer who I knew who did this, who I saw, charged either a flat rate or an hourly rate or a hybrid where they would take, you know, whatever, $300 an hour plus a percentage of whatever money is recovered at the end. And I said, you know, this is ridiculous. I said,

Mm-hmm.

when somebody gets fired from their job, the last thing that they can afford is to now pay a lawyer to handle these cases. And I said, that's it, straight contingency. We'll take a percentage of whatever we get you. And that way they don't have to, so it's like, we'll take a risk together. We'll be partners in this together. I want financially for you to get as much money as possible. We both benefit. And you do it together. So as far as like money,

to afford a lawyer to do these things, for the most part, you don't need to. If it's something, I want the lawyer to help me write a letter to request this reasonable accommodation, yeah, you're gonna find the lawyer who's gonna charge you a flat fee. Yeah, it'll take me one hour of work, I'll charge you X number of dollars, that sort of thing. But if you have a case, or you have a potential case, consultation's free, and no fee unless the case is won.

That's so reassuring. It's really awesome. I so appreciate your time today. And this is an area, as I said, I've wanted to cover for a long time. And I know I'm sure we could go deeper. there something that you could leave with the parents?

and people with disabilities going through these experiences or potentially going through these experiences, can you leave them with kind of a thought that would be, comforting and supportive and give them the confidence to be able to go and act if they're feeling discriminated against?

Absolutely, you're protected. You have rights. You don't need to sit there and take it and say, I guess this is just the way life is. And I give people the following advice. What would you advise your daughter to do? What would you advise your son to do? And if you're not doing what you would advise them to do, do it. Something's wrong. That is a danger signal because

Thank

You do have rights. The law does afford protection. It prevents them from discriminating against you in the first place, and it prevents employers from retaliating against you in the second place. And if that does happen, they're responsible. And believe me, I've made many employers pay for those violations. And just as a testament to that, know that your rights are protected and move forward.

That's awesome. And I really feel like the retaliation portion is something that I'm so glad we focused enough on today because it's something that, yeah, you feel like there's discrimination off the bat, but then that retaliation, if you need accommodations or whatever the reason may be, that's a huge, factor that happens all the time, I would imagine.

all the

time and it's terrible. That's why it's the number one complaint at the EEOC for sure.

It is really terrible. Derek, thank you so much for your time today, man. I really appreciate it. How people can get in touch with you because I would want to encourage people to in touch with you. And you're all over the country, you said, right?

So

for the most part, yes, it's deriksmettlaw.com. And feel free to reach out. And if you want to email me directly, that's fine as well. And we have lawyers in all the major states that I mentioned before.

Fantastic. I'll put all your information in the show notes so people can access that and check you out.

Great, thanks Mark, it was a pleasure speaking with you. Appreciate it.

Thank

Same here Derek Have a wonderful day.

Thank you.