Claudia Center

1997

Claudia Center

Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center

http://www.las-elc.org

San Francisco, California, United States

Civil and Human Rights

The Bold Idea:

Claudia started an initiative to advance the workplace rights of persons with psychiatric disabilities through direct services, public education, litigation, and other advocacy. The Libra (Lifting Invisible Barrierws Through Reasonable Accomodation) Project remains a core part of the disability rights program at The Legal Aid Society -- Employment Law Center. She is currently preparing for a trial against UPS on behalf of an employee with bipolar disorder who was denied accommodation.

Biography:

Claudia is a senior staff attorney at The Legal Aid Society -- Employment Law Center and in charge of the disability rights program. She was the lead private lawyer working on the 2000 amendments to the disability provisions of California's Fair Employment and Housing Act. In 2001, she argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in US Airways, Inc. v. Barnett, a case that clarified the standards for reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. She was the appellate lawyer in Nunes v. Wal-Mart Stores, a 1999 case that established for the first time in the Ninth Circuit that a leave of absence may be a reasonable accommodation