UK Disability History Month
In this blog post, Children Lawyer Sian Churchill gives an update on life as a disabled lawyer for UK Disability History Month 2024.
UK Disability History Month is an annual event, this year running from 14 November – 20 December 2024. This year’s theme is Disability, Livelihood, and Employment.
UK Disability History Month was created in 2010, to advocate for equality for disabled people. It seeks to provide a platform for disabled people, explain struggles they may be facing, think about what is going on now and in the past for disabled people, and really consider what action still is needed.
As most reading this will know, I am not an employment lawyer! I am, however, a disabled lawyer. This is a very personal and important area of work for me.
Disabled people are protected at work, and generally in society, by the Equality Act 2010.
Sadly, there remains barriers (whether that be due to discrimination, accessibility, or otherwise) to disabled people working and the employment gap between disabled and non-disabled people shows this.
In 2024, during Q2, 81.6% of non-disabled people were employed, compared to 53.0% of disabled people (Govn Statistics, The employment of disabled people 2024). It was interesting for me to see in these statistics that disabled people are more likely than non-disabled people to work in lower skilled roles, and to work in a job with fewer career opportunities.
Despite the challenges, there is much to celebrate. At a recent House of Lords event I was invited to, to mark the launch of the Diversity, Inclusion, and Law Report, I met so many inspiring people. It was truly wonderful to share stories of how we are working towards diversity in the legal profession.
Being on the Resolution EDI Committee is wonderful too. It allows me to contribute to the future of EDI within Resolution, which in turn gets filtered to all the thousands of Resolution members in the profession.
For me personally, hybrid working has been an absolute game-changer in my ability to work, and progress in my career. One of my illnesses causes chronic, daily, and high levels of pain, along with many other issues (far too many and it would bore you all!) and there are days I struggle to get much further than downstairs from the warmth of my bed. If I did not have the ability to work from home, or if Crane & Staples were not generally so inclusive and accommodating, I dread to think where I would be or where my career might be now.
For now, I keep striving for more for disabled people, more for me, and more for those in the legal profession.
My door and inbox is open if you need an ear about anything this article has discussed.
One of the charities we will be donating to this Christmas is one near and dear to my heart - https://www.ehlers-danlos.org/