chevron-down Created with Sketch Beta.
January 13, 2025

Law Student Spotlight: Lindsey Bressler

Lindsey Bressler discusses navigating law school with moderate hearing loss.

Lindsey Bressler discusses navigating law school with moderate hearing loss.

You are a 2L at the University of Michigan Law School. What has your experience as a disabled law student been like?

Navigating disability as a law student has been both illuminating and challenging. I was born with moderate hearing loss, so I wear hearing aids and read lips to help me understand others. Prior to law school, I didn’t view my hearing loss as a major impediment to my academics and often just viewed wearing hearing aids as a daily inconvenience.

However, hearing my peers’ cold calls has been markedly more difficult for me to understand than traditional teacher-led lectures. For the first time, I realized that my status quo of sitting at the front of the class and taking extra detailed notes would not be enough. Law school was the first time I sought formal accommodations and identified as a member of the disability community.

As a disabled law student, I’d like to think that I have a renewed sense of empathy for all law students and attorneys who have some sort of marginalized experience. Choosing to openly identify as disabled has brought me closer to peers who navigate their own disabilities or have loved ones with disabilities. My experience has also prompted me to think more intentionally about diverse legal representation and how I might be a champion of diversity in the legal spaces I enter in the future.

You began law school five years after graduating from Northeastern University, where you earned your Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs and Economics. You were a former Peace Corps Tanzania volunteer and a government consultant. Why did you decide to pursue law?

Upon graduating from Northeastern University, I felt called to spend time doing service work. I had always been interested in large, global problems, but found that the international experiences I had up until the point of my Peace Corps service were limited. Peace Corps Tanzania taught me so much about East Africa, international development, and my own ability to navigate unfamiliar experiences. It ultimately made me realize that my place to make the most impact was in the United States, rather than abroad.

After the Peace Corps, I spent four years in government consulting for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) clients. I expected that I would enjoy working on the federal programs, but I did not expect that I would have a deep sense of curiosity about the contracts that made my work possible or that I would feel so energized in my opportunities to tap into the business side of consulting. Law, while nowhere on my radar as an undergraduate, seemed like the perfect opportunity to play to my strengths, do intellectually interesting work, and be able to understand the world in a way I was unable to before.

What did you do as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania? How has that work influenced your perspective as a law student?

As a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania, I taught a variety of math classes to high school students in a rural village in the center of the country. Along with my primary assignment, I tutored students after school, connected teachers and students with grant opportunities, and served as an elected member of the Volunteer Advisory Council, where I advocated for volunteer needs among Peace Corps leadership.

While I do not plan to practice international law or work on humanitarian issues directly, my Peace Corps service has influenced my perspective in several different ways. It gave me the confidence to throw myself in a new, unfamiliar situation and trust that I would make it okay – a skill that is very necessary amidst the challenges of law school. It showed me the importance of building community and connection wherever you go. Finally, it gave me the sense that the world is much larger than any day-to-day stresses. An experience like the Peace Corps, or any experience studying abroad, serves as a reminder that the world is much bigger than a cold call.

You are the Internal Co-President for the National Disabled Law Students Association (NDLSA). How and why did you become involved with NDLSA?  Describe your role as co-president. What have you learned in this role?

I was first connected with NDLSA when I reached out for greater support in navigating the accommodations process. Julea Seliavski, my current co-president, and Haley Miller, the Executive Director of NDLSA, met with me and were immediately welcoming and affirming. Their support caused me to realize that the obstacles I experienced with my hearing loss were connected to the wider experience of disabled law students across the country.

Additionally, NDLSA connected me to a second-year associate working in big law who also has hearing loss. Again, her experience in law school was eerily similar to mine. Getting to speak with her on a regular basis gave me the assurance I needed to know that my career goals were not out of reach.

When the opportunity to apply for a board role presented itself, I jumped at the chance. So far, I have been happy to help serve NDLSA’s mission of supporting law students before, during, and after law school and to work on a national level in identifying main barriers for disabled law students and building a movement among our member organizations – Disabled Law Student Associations (DLSAs) – across the country.

As co-president of internal affairs, I make sure that everything internally is running smoothly and support our nonprofit compliance work. Specifically, I oversee our recruitment and retention process, work closely with our Development Director to solicit funding for our organization, and meet individually with our board members to ensure they have what they need to fulfill their potential. Overall, our board of directors is highly integrated, and I could not do my work as effectively without such a great team.

You are also the Treasurer of the American Constitution Society (ACS) and a member of the Disability Rights Organization at your school. What do these roles entail?

The ACS at the University of Michigan is one of the country’s largest and most active chapters. We co-sponsor programming with many of our law school’s student organizations to support ACS’s mission of advocating for progressive laws and legal systems that uphold the rule of law and realize the promise of equality for all. I work with our national team to ensure that these events have the funding, food, and other logistical support to be successful.

Last year, I had the opportunity to serve in my dual capacity as a Disability Rights Organization member and ACS board representative by putting on a panel on Olmstead at 25. The Olmstead decision was a landmark Supreme Court ruling that established that unjustified segregation of persons with disabilities constitutes discrimination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). We brought in speakers from Disability Rights Michigan, the Michigan Elder Justice Initiative, and the City of Detroit Office of Disability Affairs, among others, to comment on Olmstead’s legacy.

You say in your NDLSA bio that you became interested in disability advocacy work as you entered law school. Can you describe that experience? When and why did you become interested in disability advocacy work? What kind of disability advocacy work?

Three major experiences influenced my burgeoning interest in disability advocacy work. The first, as I described, was my personal experience of needing and seeking out educational accommodations for the first time. The second was having the experience of caring for a parent who is a brain injury survivor. The third was watching the movie Crip Camp as part of my consulting firm’s Disability Pride Month.

Crip Camp taught me that disability justice and reaffirmed that I am part of a protected class and wider movement. It also gave me a few more disability civil rights heroes to look up to and proved to me the importance of building community with other disabled people.

While I currently do not plan to become a disability rights lawyer, I hope to bring and increase disabled lawyers’ representation throughout my legal career and ensure that the spaces I am in are as inclusive and accommodating as possible.

What area of disability civil rights most interests you and why?

Currently, I am particularly interested in how disability discrimination operates in public spaces. When the City of Detroit’s Director of the Office of Disability Affairs spoke to us at the University of Michigan, he mentioned how when a city’s infrastructure is lacking, and, for example, the sidewalks are uneven, it makes it more dangerous for visually impaired persons to leave their homes. While the ADA makes it illegal for businesses open to the public to discriminate against people with disabilities, the concept of public space is much wider and requires a more holistic approach to make accessible for all.

Is there anything you would like to add?

For anyone who is interested in reading more about the Disability Justice movement, I highly recommend reading Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century. To say this book changed my life is not an overstatement. I believe that reading diverse stories is the first step towards taking greater action.