| Richard
Reed finds himself in a courtroom alongside defense attorneys
who make three times what he makes. But he’s the
one with the inspiring work.
Practicing what he terms “employment law from the
worker’s side” with the Law Offices of Judith
Lonnquist, Reed has taken the worker’s side up to
the state Supreme Court, arguing successfully in 2005
for the employment rights of a man fired due to depression
and post-traumatic stress disorder. Now, because of a
separate ruling by that court that all but rewrote the
state’s disability discrimination law, he and other
civil rights and disability attorneys and advocates are
pushing for Senate Bill 5340 and House Bill 1322. Both
bills reinstate the old, broader definition of a handicap
and roundly condemn the court’s action.
Reed’s father was one of those other, better paid
attorneys, defending insurers and other companies for
41 years. Why did he take up the prosecutor’s side?
“I got to wear the white hat against the bad guys;
sometimes I got money and sometimes I didn’t, but
I’ve found it really invigorating.”
—Adam Hyla
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