Mission

Deaf Legal Advocacy Worldwide is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides scholarships for deaf leaders to attend law school and become lawyers who advocate for the human rights of deaf people. We support the legal training of deaf leaders so they can advocate within their countries for the implementation of laws that guarantee the human rights recognized by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

Despite the CRPD’s broad recognition of the human rights of people with disabilities, deaf people continue to experience significant discrimination stemming from prejudice, the lack of education, limited employment opportunities, and the limited availability of accommodations such as sign language interpreters and captioning.

The marginalization of the deaf community means that it lacks the political and cultural capital necessary to navigate the legal system to vindicate the human rights of deaf people. In most countries, deaf people are unable to find lawyers to advocate for their rights. They struggle to communicate with lawyers who do not know sign language and are unfamiliar with deaf culture. In most countries there are no deaf lawyers. Consequently, many deaf communities lack the tools to navigate a political and legal system to advocate for their human rights.

We provide scholarships for deaf leaders to become lawyers so they can use legal expertise to translate broad notions of equal access into the legal language necessary to include deaf people in society. These deaf lawyers ensure the political participation of deaf people in the political and legal process necessary to realize the promise of the CRPD.