Paying Lawyer Prices? Make Sure a Lawyer Is Doing the Legal Work — Especially in ADA and 504 Cases

Last reviewed November 2, 2026

If you are paying lawyer prices, a lawyer should be doing the legal work. That sounds obvious. In practice, it is one of the first things to verify before you hire anyone for a dispute with a college, graduate program, or professional school — and it matters most in Section 504 and ADA accommodation cases, because that area of law is almost nothing but judgment calls.

Here is how to check, why the disability cases in particular need a lawyer’s hands on them, and how my own practice is set up.

Who actually touches your case after you sign?

At a lot of firms, the person you speak with first is a salesperson. The person who then “manages” your case is a case manager or paralegal. The attorney whose name is on the website reviews the file at some point — sometimes closely, sometimes not — and appears for the hearing or signs the letter. You are billed at attorney rates throughout.

None of that is illegal. Florida’s rules let a lawyer delegate work to non-lawyer staff, as long as the lawyer supervises it and takes responsibility for it. But the same rules draw a line that matters to you. The comment to Rule 4-5.3 of the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar puts it in one sentence: if an activity requires the independent judgment and participation of the lawyer, it cannot be delegated to a non-lawyer employee. Deciding what your accommodation claim is, what the school’s legal exposure is, what to demand and in what order, and when to escalate — that is independent legal judgment. It is the thing you are paying for.

So before you pay, ask three plain questions and insist on plain answers:

• Who will read my entire file — a lawyer, or staff who summarize it for a lawyer?
• Who will decide the strategy and write the letters, appeals, and filings?
• When I have a question about my case, do I reach the lawyer, or does it go through someone who has to ask the lawyer?

A firm that does it right will answer those without flinching. A firm that answers with “our team” every time has told you something.

Why disability cases are the ones where this matters most

Some student matters are mostly procedural. If the handbook gives you five business days to appeal and lists the grounds, a careful non-lawyer can get the paperwork in on time. Accommodation disputes are not like that. The governing standards are written as open questions, and the answer in your case depends on facts, documents, and a line of court decisions that a non-lawyer is not trained to apply.

Consider what a school has to do, and what it is allowed to refuse. A public university must make “reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures” unless it can show the modification “would fundamentally alter the nature” of the program (28 C.F.R. § 35.130(b)(7)). Any school that takes federal money must modify its academic requirements as necessary — but requirements it can show are essential to the program or to a licensing requirement are not discriminatory (34 C.F.R. § 104.44(a)). Every important word in those two sentences is a legal term that courts have spent decades defining: reasonable, necessary, fundamentally alter, essential.

Then layer on the cases. The Supreme Court in Davis said a school does not have to lower its standards or make substantial changes to its program. In Ewing it told courts to defer to genuine academic judgment. Read those two cases loosely and a school could win every accommodation fight by saying “that would compromise our standards.” The First Circuit in Wynne v. Tufts closed that door: a school claiming fundamental alteration has to show that the people who made the decision actually considered alternatives, weighed the costs and effects, and came to a rationally justifiable conclusion. Whether your school did that, and whether the record proves it, is the whole case — and it is a question of law applied to facts, not a form to fill in.

Clinical and professional programs add another layer. “Technical standards,” patient safety, licensing board rules, and the difference between an accommodation and a modification of what is being tested all come into play. I wrote separately about how clinical accommodations get approved and why those requests fail; the short version is that the gray areas are where the decisions get made.

There is a second reason this is lawyer work. Each decision point has a deadline attached. Internal appeal windows are often measured in days. A complaint to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is generally due within 180 days of the discriminatory act (more on OCR complaints here). Courts have their own clocks. Choosing which track to use, and in what order, so that one path does not quietly close another, is a strategy decision. It belongs to the person who will be accountable for it.

What a non-lawyer cannot do for you, no matter how good they are

I want to be fair to the many capable non-lawyer advocates and consultants in this space. Some know the disability-services process cold. But there are things only a lawyer can do, and in an accommodation dispute they tend to be the things that decide the outcome.

A non-lawyer cannot give you legal advice about your rights or your school’s obligations. A non-lawyer cannot sign a demand letter as counsel, cannot file a lawsuit, and cannot appear for you in court. Communications with a non-lawyer who is not working under a lawyer’s direction are generally not privileged, which means what you told them may be discoverable later. And a non-lawyer is not subject to professional discipline — the comment to Rule 4-5.3 says the supervising lawyer’s measures must take account of exactly that.

When the school’s general counsel gets involved — and in a serious accommodation dispute, they will — the person across the table from you needs to be someone they have to take seriously. The school knows the difference between a letter from an advocate and a letter from a lawyer who can and will file.

How my practice is set up

I run a solo practice, and the structure is deliberate. The legal work is mine. I read your complete file myself. I decide the strategy, write the letters, appeals, and filings, prepare you for hearings, and appear with you. If a matter goes to court, I am the one who files it and litigates it. When you have a question about your case, you reach me.

I do have help, and I want you to know exactly what it is. Ben Jones works mostly at the front end, with prospective clients: he responds to inquiries, follows up, and gathers the information and documents I need to evaluate a matter. He does that job well, and it matters, because most of the students who contact me are still in class, still on rotation, or still studying for an exam, and they do not have hours to spend chasing paperwork. Once a matter is mine, Ben’s part is largely done. Ben is not an attorney and does not give legal advice. All legal work and legal advice come from me. That division is written on the how this works page because it is the answer to the three questions above, and you are entitled to it in writing from anyone you hire.

That is true of every matter I take — accommodations, dismissals, Title IX, conduct, litigation. Fees are set in writing before any work begins, and they are attorney fees for attorney work. You are not paying lawyer prices for staff service.

Questions to ask before you hire anyone

• Will a licensed attorney read my whole file, or a summary of it?
• Who decides strategy, and who writes the appeal, the letter, or the complaint?
• Does the attorney handle accommodation disputes, or mostly conduct and dismissal cases? (The law is different, and the school’s defenses are different.)
• If the school refuses, will you file — an OCR complaint, a lawsuit — and who files it?
• If I email with a question, who answers, and how fast?
• Is any part of my matter handled by someone who is not a lawyer? Which part, exactly?

Those questions are not rude. Any lawyer who does this work will be glad you asked, because the answers are what we are selling. I also keep a longer guide on how to vet a student-defense lawyer, with the one question I think matters most: will they actually litigate.

The takeaway

Accommodation law in higher education is decided in the gray areas — reasonable, necessary, essential, fundamental alteration — and those are legal judgments with deadlines attached. The same is true, in different words, of a dismissal appeal, a Title IX hearing, or a conduct case. If you are paying for a lawyer, make sure a lawyer is the one making the judgments. Ask who does the work before you sign, get the answer in writing, and hold them to it.

If your school has denied an accommodation, dismissed you, or started a proceeding against you, tell me what happened. You will be speaking with the lawyer who handles your matter.