[blindlaw] Re Employment Ideas

[Elizabeth Rene]

Mr. Dittman, I applaud your efforts to serve in the Coast Guard as a JAG 
officer.

But I'm a little amused at the speech, "Service in your country's uniform 
isn't a right, it's a privilege."

I thought it was a duty.

And I wonder whether those who have donned  the uniform and fought in 
Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam, Korea, or the Philippines felt privileged 
under fire.

I'll bet that, like you, they were impelled, if not actively compelled, to 
answer a call to patriotic duty.

I don't approve of war, but I do think that since we blind assert rights to 
reasonable workplace accommodations because with them we can do the job as 
well as everyone else, then we should just as fervently embrace and 
volunteer for national service.

There are probably jobs in the military that blind people could do far 
better than sighted personnel.

I volunteered for the Coast Guard JAG during my last year in law school 
(1977-1978) when there were already six women serving there around the 
country.  My male faculty advisor had been a JAG officer, and a female 
mentor my mother's age had served in the Coast Guard with her husband in 
World War II.  They backed me completely.  So did the female JAG officer at 
CG headquarters near my law school.

The local recruiters wouldn't take my application, or even let me inside 
their building, so I wrote to headquarters in Washington.

Throughout that whole year, I corresponded with admirals, who quite 
graciously, though sometimes humorously,  considered my joining the JAG. 
I'm not sure they took me seriously, but the tone of their letters was 
cordial all the same, considering they needn't have answered me at all. 
They concluded that, though I'd probably be an asset to the JAG as an 
attorney, I'd doubtless cause a problem when I volunteered for a sea command 
once my tour was up!

In school, I took courses in Admiralty, International Law and Military 
Justice with other studies that I hoped would make me a well-rounded trial 
lawyer.

When my lawyer mentors in the 1970's Eighth Circuit convinced me that a 
lawsuit to fight for Coast Guard admission would fail in a court 
unsympathetic to blind litigants with goals far humbler than mine, I looked 
for a city and jobs where I could use my sea-worthy skills.

Seattle was one of 14 cities where I might have been based, and it offered a 
friendlier and cheaper seaport home for young lawyers at large than other 
places.

My first job, landed just after the bar review, was a clerkship in a 
maritime law firm.

I didn't pass the bar exam that first time, and I had to scramble for jobs 
until I did.  But I found them, and I landed the job I wanted when I passed.

I credit that good job to my preparation for the Coast Guard and to my first 
Seattle maritime clerkship.  Without these, I'd never have found my feet in 
a city where I knew no one.

Good luck to you!  And think of firms and agencies specializing in your 
skill set.

Elizabeth Rene