This lawyer, who has autism, is smashing stereotypes: “I want to see a day when it’s really normal and not an exception to see people with disabilities doing great things.' WorldAutismAwarenessDay
This story is part of “Ceiling Smashers,” a series in which successful women across industries tell MarketWatch how they broke down professional barriers.
Moss was nonverbal for the first three years of her life, relying on screaming and crying to communicate. At the same time, she said, she was completing 100-piece jigsaw puzzles. When Moss was three years of age, doctors diagnosed her with autism — suggesting to her parents that she might never get her driver’s license, hold down a job or even make friends.
Haley Moss was nonverbal for the first three years of her life. At the same time, Moss said, she was also completing 100-piece jigsaw puzzles. Moss says she was willing to share the good, the bad and the ugly about experiences like making friends, enduring big transitions and even learning how to do laundry away from home. “Back then, there wasn’t really a lot of resources written by autistic people, for autistic people,” she said.
Many adults with autism are unemployed Lawyers like Moss are rare. Women make up about 37% of lawyers in the country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — and while data on lawyers with disabilities at both the associate and partner levels are sparse, just 0.53% of all lawyers self-reported that they had a disability, according to the National Association for Law Placement.
Living with autism in his own house has sensitized Zumpano to appreciate “the wonders” of someone like Moss who is neurodiverse, he said. Many organizations appear to be on the same page. The German software company SAP’s SAP, -0.01% Autism at Work program has tapped what it calls an “under-utilized talent source” since 2013, employing more than 140 workers in a dozen countries. JPMorgan Chase’s JPM, +0.48% Autism at Work program, piloted in 2015 with just four people, now includes 85 employees.
Moss says she wishes the public better understood that people with autism are an “incredibly diverse” group. “When you meet one person on the spectrum, you meet one person,” she said. Despite her own difficulties, Moss stressed that people with disabilities are “the experts on ourselves,” recalling the doubt some expressed over whether she could succeed at a large university and whether law school might be “too much.”
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