Rachael Langston, Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center staff attorney
Image: courtesy photo
Rachael Langston, 29, staff attorney
Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center
Langston gets to work and to court on an electric scooter, which makes her a particularly effective legal advocate at San Francisco's Legal Aid Society. Focusing on gender equity and disability rights programs for the organization, the 2008 UC-Berkeley School of Law graduate admitted to the bar in 2010 made access to her lifeline of public transportation her first major legal objective. Once Langston started commuting from the East Bay to San Francisco, she found that few drivers employed by AC Transit had been trained to operate the wheelchair and scooter lifts on their buses. Many would pass her by, making her late for work, and those who did stop were often rude and took more than an hour to load her onto the bus. With the help of LAS-ELC attorneys and pro bono counsel from Latham & Watkins, Langston became the plaintiff in a disability rights case that resulted in a settlement implementing mandatory training and monitoring for all drivers to safely load passengers with all mobility devices. Now a staff attorney, Langston is leading LAS-ELC's support of Assembly Bill 1740 which provides employment protections to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking.
Word that best describes you?
Passionate.
What you'd do if you could take a year off?
Travel. And spend some time with my family back in Texas.
Guilty pleasure?
I love Tex-Mex, and really miss it out here in California.
Most unusual hobby you've ever had?
I took adaptive horseback riding lessons for a couple of years during college. It was amazing, and I'd love to eventually pick it up again.
Trial or deal you wish you could have worked on?
Olmstead v. L.C. Seminal case regarding the important issue of the deinstitutionalization of individuals with disabilities. I would have loved to work on this and other cases heard relatively shortly after the passage of the ADA.
