Lindsey Mazza says COVID-era remote hearings improved accessibility, but courts rolled back the measures
The legal profession is structured around perfectionism and the principle of "survival of the fittest," which leaves little room for people with disabilities, says Lindsey Mazza, a former practising lawyer turned motivational speaker.
Mazza, who has a rare genetic condition called Holt-Oram Syndrome that affects her limbs and heart, says her challenges started before she entered law school.
“For me, it was full of barriers. I was denied accommodation to even write my law school entrance exams,” Mazza says.
As a litigator, she encountered additional obstacles. “The courthouses are not fully accessible. The technology is antiquated in a lot of them… Law is designed for the fittest, and you either have to make it work or you fall behind,” she says.
The legal industry, she says, is particularly resistant to change compared to other ones.
“It is very, very old-school. A part of the reason it lacks accessibility is because the decision-makers are old, and they are resistant to change,” she adds.
She says that the fastest improvements in accessibility came during the COVID-19 pandemic, when remote hearings became the norm, making legal work more manageable for many disabled professionals.
But as in-person proceedings resumed, courtrooms scaled back those measures, she says.
“There was a push from the top for it to go back to the way it was, and you had to request special permission to continue to attend virtually,” she recalls. “It was just because there’s this preference, and this is how we’ve been doing it all these years.”
Mazza says that merely meeting legal accessibility standards isn’t enough. “Just because people are following the government's bare minimum doesn’t make it accessible,” she says, adding that complying with minimum standards can sometimes lead to more frustration.
She recalls a courthouse where an accessible entrance button had been installed, but once inside, there were no accessible buttons to enter the double-door courtrooms.
“I just don’t think people care enough because it doesn’t impact a large enough portion of the population,” she says.
The rollback of pandemic-era accommodations hasn’t been consistent across courthouses, which is adding to the frustration, she says.
“For example, I practised in Hamilton. The Hamilton courthouse had different rules than the St. Catharines’ one, which was 40 minutes down the road.”
Mazza says that law firms have high expectations but fail to consider the additional hurdles disabled professionals face.
“It’s a one-size-fits-all approach,” she adds.
“My disability is visible, and it made it easier for me to address my needs. But people whose disabilities are not visible are definitely not going to be the ones to ask for accommodations when going for job interviews. It’s absolutely discriminatory,” Mazza says.
She adds that the burden to point out what needs to be done can’t always be put on the lawyers with disabilities as they already feel isolated.
She says past experiences of being ignored can discourage people from speaking up.
“There have been so many moments in our lives where we’ve raised it, and it didn’t matter… We already feel like we’re on an island.”
Mazza says the profession needs to take a more proactive approach and include people with disabilities in discussions with decision-makers. The entire profession, she says, desperately needs reform.
“You’re entering a profession where you’re constantly told you’re not good enough. It’s survival of the fittest, it’s competition, and people really get lost in it.”
Navigating a legal career with a disability can lead to burnout, says Mazza, who experienced burnout firsthand.
“I was always in a state of needing to figure things out,” she says, describing the constant problem-solving required just to perform daily tasks, from entering courtrooms to bringing documents to the court.
In January 2024, following the death of her father, she reached a breaking point. “I was waking up in the mornings, lying in bed, thinking it would be easier to be dead than to go to work.”
When she confided in other lawyers, she was shocked by their responses.
“I started to share this with other lawyers, and they would say to me, ‘Yeah, me too.’ And I’d be like, ‘What do you mean, yeah, me too? This is not something that I’m prepared to accept.’”
She says the profession’s expectation of relentless work is outdated, especially with modern technology enabling lawyers to work more efficiently.
“We can get so much more done in a shorter period of time now,” she says. Despite that, there remains pressure to always be working, she adds.
“Lawyers work weekends and evenings, and I had a very clear boundary that I wouldn’t do that. When you set that boundary, people ask: ‘What’s wrong with you?... The entire system needs an overhaul,” she says.
