What can Elder Law Learn from Disability Law?

The question “What is disability law” is quite different from the question “what is disability?” I think the first question (about law) is considerably easier to answer than the second (about disability). Yet the answer to the first question remains woefully incomplete until we address, in some significant measure, the disability question.

Disability law then includes the study of the interaction of law and members of the disability community. This interaction may be direct or indirect. It can include value judgments with which our laws are imbued. It can include interactions as diverse as standards for the development of parks and motor vehicle licencing regulations. The interaction may create positive or negative impacts. The impact may arise from the extension of state protection from discriminatory action or it may arise from the provision of a benefit under the law. Finally disability law acts as a lens to help us see the differential impact any law or policy may have on a person with a disability. Understanding each of these aspects of what disability law is requires some examination of “who counts” as a person with a disability. Understanding this question raises the related question of “What counts as a disability?” Paradoxically, I believe that more can be learned by understanding how we have answered that question than can be learned from the answer itself.