I frequently discuss lawyers continuing to practice under temporary disabilities, like bad colds, flues, serious pain (like migraines) or painful injuries. The lines are blurry indeed, but if a condition causes a lawyer to be sub-par in serving a client’s needs, the client should be informed, and the lawyer should be prepared to either delay the matter or find a replacement. Progressive disabilities, like age-related declines in stamina and cognitive ability, also have to be taken seriously by an ethical lawyer and dealt with responsibly in the best interests of clients.
Missouri has a rule that allows for a court to suspend a lawyer after an adjudication of disability or incapacity. This week the Missouri Supreme Court summarily suspended a lawyer after the lawyer had been found disabled by a Social Security judge. She has medical issues affecting her eyesight, back, and hands,and she also suffers from chronic migraines. Her lawyer insists that her judgment has not been affected, and that she is still capable of competent and zealous representation of her clients. The applicability of the Americans with Disabilities Act is obviously an issue.
The suspended lawyer cites the precedent of Paul Alexander, a recently deceased Dallas lawyer who specialized in ADA cases. He graduated from the University of Texas School of Law. Alexander had polio as a child, which rendered him a quadriplegic. He used an iron lung except when a case required him to leave his workplace in a wheelchair and practiced law for more than 40 years typing on his personal computer using a device he held in his mouth. Alexander also painted and wrote a book.
Presumably his clients were aware of his disability ans consented to his representation of them despite his disability. Presumably also, he would have been suspended in Missouri. Still, is the proper standard to be applied to all lawyers reasonably embodied by Paul Alexander, who was an outlier by anyone’s definition?
Ethics Alarms 
I think a significant difference between Paul Alexander’s condition and this suspended attorney’s is that Mr. Alexander’s condition was ongoing and predictable, while the attorney’s condition is chronic. With Alexander you knew going in he wasn’t going to be walking around pointing at things on slides or attending meetings in person (unless they were at his place), but he’d structured his practice around that. Can this MO lawyer say the same? Are her migraines predictable and managable enough that she can make sure they don’t happen in the middle of a trial or discovery meeting? With her joint pain can she still reliably type, and get herself around, or if not, has she found a consistent workaround? If she has “good days and bad days” does she have reliable people to call and systems to put in place that she can work through the bad days?
What would be unacceptable, in my view, is if her conditions were completely unpredictable and unplanned for. Hence even if she can competently and zealously represent her clients on her good days, but on bad days everyone depending on her is just out of luck, that crosses the line.
Better Call Saul dealt quite a bit with this issue. Saul Goodman’s brother was far more astute, refined and successful than Saul, but suffered from a psychological aversion to electricity. The ADA was never argued, but instead he was enabled by law partners and his brother.