Brown, Goldstein & Levy is proud to support the 2025 National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM). This year marks the 80th anniversary of NDEAM, an annual celebration of the value and talent workers with disabilities add to America’s workplaces and economy. As one of the nation’s leading disability rights firms, we advocate fiercely to protect and advance the rights of individuals with disabilities, including their right to participate fully and equally in the workforce.
BGL works tirelessly to break down barriers people with disabilities face in their access to information, technology, housing, education, employment, and transportation. For decades, we have worked hard to ensure that programs and services offered by private companies and governmental entities alike are fully accessible to individuals with disabilities, as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act and other federal and state laws. Our experienced attorneys often litigate high-profile, high-impact disability rights cases in trial and appellate courts across the country.
From winning a jury verdict in favor of a blind county call center worker, to representing the National Federation of the Blind and one of its members alongside the EEOC against National Telecommuting Institute for refusing to refer blind applicants to its employer customers, to representing a blind clinical social worker employed by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs who was not provided accessible technology or reasonable accommodations, our attorneys are proud to support employees with disabilities in enforcing the law and obtaining workplace justice.
For over a decade, the firm has advocated for the end of Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which allows employers to pay people with disabilities less than minimum wage. BGL has represented workers employed under Section 14(c) in their fight for fair and non-discriminatory wages, including three individuals who successfully challenged their receipt of subminimum wages in an administrative proceeding before the United States Department of Labor (DOL). Read more about that victory here. The Washington Post spoke to partner Kevin Docherty about the law as part of its three-part investigation into the implementation and history of 14(c) in September 2024.
On December 3, 2024, the DOL announced that it would be phasing out certificates that allow employers to pay workers with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage. While the proposed ruling gave hope for disability rights advocates and individuals with disabilities, the ruling was withdrawn on July 7, 2025.
Partner Eve Hill was recently interviewed by Texas Public Radio, where she shared insight on how disability rights advocates can move forward after the DOL withdrew its proposal to eliminate employers’ authorization to pay subminimum wages to workers with disabilities. Read Eve’s feature here.
We work to advance disability justice outside of the courtroom as well. We offer Inclusivity, a strategic consulting firm, to support businesses, organizations, and government agencies that want to achieve real inclusion of people with disabilities in their workforces and communities. We also offer a disability rights fellowship, a highly competitive, fellowship for recent law school graduates with a disability designed to help jump start their litigation careers.
We are proud to hold ourselves to the highest standards of inclusion in all of our work – both inside and outside of the office. We celebrate diversity, inclusion, and accessibility and believe that planning for accessibility from the start, as well as providing reasonable accommodations, fosters a collaborative, creative environment in which every person can use their strengths to their fullest and achieve the best results for our clients.
Founded in 1982, Brown, Goldstein & Levy is a law firm based in Baltimore, Maryland, with an office in Washington, DC. The firm is nationally recognized in a wide variety of practice areas, including complex civil and commercial litigation, civil rights, health care, family law, and criminal defense. Above all else, Brown, Goldstein & Levy is a client-centered law firm that brings decades of experience and passionate, effective advocacy to your fight for justice. .