Neurodiversity in the legal field: Enhance your understanding to support clients, coworkers, and yourself
Description:
This session highlights the concept of neurodiversity, its relevance in the legal profession, and the unique ways neurodivergent individuals contribute to enriching the workplace. Through engaging discussions and real-world examples, participants will explore how ableism affects individuals with disabilities, including neurodivergent people, and learn why addressing these barriers is essential for a more inclusive legal field.
In addition to understanding these systemic challenges, you’ll walk away with practical tools to navigate executive functioning demands, create self-accommodations, and foster empathy in your interactions. These strategies will help you better support yourself, your clients, and your colleagues, building a more collaborative and equitable legal community.
Suggested Learning Objectives:
- Participants will learn key definitions of neurodiversity, explore its relevance within the legal field, and understand how neurodivergent individuals contribute strengths to the workplace.
- Through discussion and relevant statistics, participants will start to recognize the need to talk about ableism within the legal profession, learning how it affects individuals with disabilities, including neurodivergent individuals, mental health conditions, and substance use disorders.
- Participants will gain practical skills for executive functioning and self-accommodation, as well as foster empathy through perspective-taking exercises to better support themselves, clients, and coworkers.
Suggested Agenda (2 hours):
- Icebreaker and roadmap for the workshop (∼ 10 mins)
- Introduction to speaker (∼ 20 mins)
- What is neurodiversity? (∼ 35 mins)
- Definition and introduction to neurodiversity
- Strengths of a neurodiverse workplace
- Legal field relevant stats including mental health and SUD stats
- Different definitions of disability
- A discussion of ableism
- Supporting yourself and others (∼35 mins)
- Executive functioning
- Self-accommodations
- Empathy – perspective-taking exercise
- Conclusion, discussion, & questions (∼ 20 mins)
