Great Minds Think Differently | Spectrumly Speaking ep. 112
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IN THIS EPISODE:
(AUDIO – 36 mins) Hosts Haley Moss and Dr. Lori Butts discuss Haley’s new book “Great Minds Think Differently: Neurodiversity for Lawyers and Other Professionals”, published by the American Bar Association!
To buy Haley’s new book, visit: https://www.americanbar.org/products/inv/book/413499755/
Spectrumly Speaking is the podcast dedicated to women on the autism spectrum, produced by Different Brains®. Every other week, join our hosts Haley Moss (an autism self-advocate, attorney, artist, and author) and Dr. Lori Butts (a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist, and licensed attorney) as they discuss topics and news stories, share personal stories, and interview some of the most fascinating voices from the autism community.
For more about Haley, check out her website: haleymoss.net And look for her on Twitter: twitter.com/haleymossart For more about Dr. Butts, check out her website: cfiexperts.com
Have a question or story for us? E-mail us at SpectrumlySpeaking@gmail.com
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:
HALEY MOSS (HM):
Hello, and welcome to Spectrumly Speaking. I’m Haley Moss, an attorney, author, artist and I’m autistic. Today I am joined here by my wonderful co host, the one and only
DR LORI BUTTS (LB):
Dr. Lori Butts. I’m a psychologist and an attorney.
HM:
How are you doing?
LB:
Good, how are you?
HM:
I’m pretty excited. I just have a lot going on. But I think that we’re getting through things. And it’s nice to have this little bit of a return to leaving the house. I wouldn’t call it a return to normal by any means because I don’t feel like anything’s ever gonna be the same. And I don’t think that’s the normal that we had really helped everybody or benefited everyone. But I would like to just call it a return to leaving the house and doing things again,
LB:
I like that. I like that. I’d like that statement. I’ll go with that. That works.
HM:
It’s so wild to me. I’m like, Oh my god, I could actually like go somewhere.
LB:
Yep, there’s a lot of places to go.
HM:
Exactly primed, vaccinated and ready for summer. As one of my friends has been saying, and I’ve been just kind of going with it and like Yep, that’s me.
LB:
Right. There we go. like it. I like it.
HM:
I don’t even know how it’s summer already. Honestly.
LB:
I know half the years almost over. It’s pretty crazy.
HM:
Where did this year go?
LB:
Well, we know where it went just kind of waiting to get on with it. I guess.
HM:
It’s just well.
LB:
Yeah, it’s it’s very strange.
HM:
And now I think for me, what’s really wild about it is I’m finally getting to see the fruits of my labor of stuff that I got to do while in lockdown last year. And it’s just very weird to me thinking, Oh, I get to finally say what I did while I was stuck at home for like 11 months.
LB:
Right? Well, that’s a good segue, because this week, we’re gonna go guest less today and talk about something we’ve been looking forward to Haley’s new book about neurodiversity for lawyers and other professionals, which we’re going to talk about, but first, Haley, tell us about it.
HM:
I have been waiting to talk about this on spectrally. And pretty much everywhere. Last year. I think I’ve mentioned it a couple times, like as something that I’ve been working on. But I wanted to wait till I had something more concrete or like I had an actual release date. Because otherwise I just be like, Oh, it’s coming in summer. Oh, it’s coming at this time. And somehow it is June, and everyone from the American Bar Association, who is my publisher on this book has been like, yeah, we’re gonna be in stock in June. And I’m like, Oh, my gosh, this is real. I’m even just going through like, cover designs, like this whole process. This past year has been absolutely wild. So to get to the nitty gritty in the details, the book is called “Great Minds Think Differently: Neurodiversity for Lawyers and Other Professionals”. And I want to thank you, I just really wanted to write this book. This was the book that my heart wanted to write. And I didn’t know if there was ever going to be a place for it, especially because when I first got sworn into the bar, you know the story. And if the listeners don’t, when I was sworn in to the Florida Bar, it was very unusual to have autistic and neurodivergent attorneys being open and that my story went viral. That’s kind of like the short version of what happened to me in 2019, is the story went viral and I was billed as Florida’s first openly autistic attorney. And I have a lot of mixed feelings on that title. But that’s a whole other conversation, right?
LB:
That’s another show.
HM:
It really is because I have to explain it very often. Because people are always like, you’re the first How does it feel to be the first I’m like, well, chances are I’m probably not, it’s just that we aren’t very good at talking about no diversity, especially within the legal profession, right. And something that really happened after that viral moment or whatever, what have you or whatever you’d like to call it, it’s in our profession seems like they actually were excited and willing to learn and a lot more open minded than they’ve ever been. So for those of you who don’t know, lawyers, historically, are a little bit behind the eight ball when it comes to disability issues, mental health and neuro diversity. So I graduated law school a little over three years ago. Now, I don’t know how that time has absolutely flown. And there were very few of any resources for lawyers with disabilities, let alone neurodivergent lawyers and law students. So what’s changed in the last three years has been monumental leaps and bounds of growth. So you see different programs for law students with disabilities, recruiting potential law, students of disabilities, firms and diversity fellowships, actively recruiting law students with disabilities and it’s just a huge shift and even seeing this topic being tackled in different conferences and can take Doing legal education webinars and sessions like neuro diversity in the practice of law. That’s something that I’ve been getting into ever since going viral. And it’s like, there are no hardcopy tangible resources on this topic, there is literally nothing in the profession is hungry for it, they want to know more about supporting our neurodivergent colleagues to seeing the profession is larger than just we have mental health issues. Because as what seems to be as our profession has a huge focus on mental health and wellness, I serve on the Florida Bar, young lawyers division Board of Governors, and I served on the health and wellness committee the past year, and what would happen with health and wellness is it was all about being physically fit and taking care of yourself, maybe get help if you need it, break the stigma, but nothing that seemed really well, you’re not going to ever maybe be 100%, neurotypical or you might always live with a mental health disability, or you might always still be neurodivergent. Like, that’s just how it is. And I don’t think we’ve always been great at addressing that. So something I really wanted to do was kind of unpack neurodiversity for lawyers and other professionals, because I realized, as I was writing this is it goes beyond just lawyers, I use lawyers as my framework, because we are very behind the eight ball, like I was saying. And what I was learning is a lot of what I was beginning to research and write about, was applicable to other professionals across other fields. So even if it’s just Law Office support staff, or people who work in human resources, or anyone who is in a client facing role, or is also working with other colleagues or even has any kind of stake in public policy, but there is something for you that you can learn from this experience and what I wrote about so that’s really kind of the why and what I’m really hoping to accomplish is have folks walk away with a greater understanding of neuro diversity and how we can encourage, empower and support the neuro diversity people in our offices in our clients and do better as a whole. So whether you are neuro divergent you love someone who’s neuro divergent, or you’re working with someone who was neurodivergent I think you’re gonna walk away with something.
LB:
Wow. That’s amazing Haley. That’s, that’s a lot. That’s a lot.
HM:
It’s been a process for me. And I really didn’t know where I was going. Because it’s like, I don’t want to go the memoir route. Because I don’t feel like I’m old enough or ready for that yet.
LB:
You’re definitely not speaking as the older person in this conversation, no way.
HM:
I don’t think I’m ready for it, honestly.
LB:
Um, and so didn’t want to do my more. So how did you get direction? How did you? How did you decide?
HM:
I knew this was something I wanted to do. Like, I just knew I wanted to do it. It was just finding, like, how am I going to do this? Where am I going to get this going? And I was kind of like outlining it. And I remember thinking, I’m going to do this. And I think I made that as my point that was actually my new year’s resolution for 2020 is that I’m going to write this book because it needs to exist, right. And I had no idea what to expect. Or if when I brought it to brought my idea to the bar if they were gonna think I was just absolutely ridiculous for thinking this was needed. Because I always think that sometimes neuro diversity, at least in some spaces, it’s very ahead of its time. And I’m not sure as often if everybody’s ready to have those conversations. And I think in the last year, even we’ve made huge strides in that even to seeing April going that shift towards acceptance, right. Like I think we’ve really made a lot of strides, but I didn’t know if a historically conservative profession would be ready for those strides.
LB:
Why did you propose it to the bar to why why’d you pick that?
HM:
I wanted to go with the American Bar Association, honestly, because I thought that how was I going to reach the audience that I wanted to, which is, you know, lawyers as a whole. I also happen to be one of those practitioners who enjoys ABA books. So right. Okay, I would like to remind our listeners for this conversation, when we talk about ABA, we mean the American Bar Association and not applied behavior analysis. Just a quick, a quick thing, because I realized as I promote this book, anytime I link to the publisher, which is like at shop ABA on Twitter, somebody in the autistic community is probably going to get upset, thinking that is, it is the other ABA, right? Well, I have to sit here and just kind of throw out my random disclaimer that this is when we talk about ABA for the purposes of this conversation we’re talking about the American Bar Association. Right, that aside. I wanted to work with the ABA because I thought that honestly that a lot of lawyers are members, a lot of words, trust them as a resource. I trust them as a resource for a lot of things. And I know that I got to work with the Commission on disability rights for a panel and an event back at American University. In 2019, and I think that they really are committed to inclusion of lawyers with disability. And it just feels, and even that they’re doing studies on things like the intersection of LGBTQ identities and lawyers with disabilities, like, there’s just so many great things that they are working on and that they are helping spearhead. But I really thought it was the right decision. As far as like, who to go with and how to do this.
LB:
Yeah, that makes sense. Makes a lot of sense. And so what was the process of doing writing this book? What was your process?
HM:
So my process was kind of a very multifaceted thing as I wanted to go through it with the blend of the personal and the professional, that’s kind of the driving force behind everything I do, especially when I am in an educational type role. So even when I’m doing things like like trainings, and public speaking, and webinars, etc, etc, I try to blend that personal and professional. That’s something I really wanted to deal with this book too. But I think when it came to the personal experiences, I’ve I went through law school, I worked at a firm, I’ve worked for myself, I’ve sat through awkward networking, I know what it’s like to be the only neurodivergent person in the room. I also know a lot about neuro diversity from the fact that I think it’s a hobby at this point, as well as also my career. But what I did as far as the professional parts, as well as I got to do a lot of research. And I wanted to write this book almost more like a journalist when I was thinking about it, thinking it through is how do I give practical tips, personal experience, and also be able to just give people what they want, and also just have it not be just my musings on things. So I got to do a lot of research on whether it’s different resources on neuro diversity, different larvae articles and things on how like the ADA is involved with neuro diversity, even just things like that. And the best part of researching this book, honestly, is that I had put out kind of some feelers and I wanted to talk to people, I knew that I am certainly not the only neurodivergent lawyer out there. And I know that neuro diversity and I know that we’ve talked about this before tail encompasses way more than just autistic people, is I wanted to make sure I had that nice smattering of experiences and experts to talk to, to make sure that we are being as inclusive as possible. So it’s not just an autism book. So I wanted to really make that clear from the get goes, if you’re thinking this is just going to be about supporting autistic people, you’re probably not going to just get that and you might be a little unsatisfied, is because neuro diversity does include our friends who have ADHD, learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities, and mental health and psychiatric disabilities too. So I always make a point of being very intentional when I define neuro diversity to make sure that it’s included, including intellectual disabilities and psychiatric mental health disabilities, because I think our friends with intellectual disabilities particularly get thrown under the bus and most disability activism, they’re seen as folks who can’t speak for themselves who don’t want things that society is really difficult on folks with ID. And also I think mental health people stigmatize and often misunderstand, when really, they’re part of our community, too. So that’s kind of where I’m coming from as I cast neuro diversity as a much wider net. So I got to speak to all sorts of different lawyers, and even psychologists and people who work with executives and lawyers and professionals with these types of conditions. And the stories that I was being told from all sorts of walks of life, all different stages of career was very it for me, it was really interesting. So I got to learn from people who were academics that were neurodivergent. And in the legal in, like legal academia, I got to speak to solo firm, like solos. And so solo practitioners, I got to speak to people in big law firms, I got to speak to people with non traditional career paths. And I also got to speak to law students. So I really wanted to cover that. And I also spoke to HR professional, so I even got to speak. I even got to quote people like our friendly Eric as well. So it was just wonderful getting to talk to so many different people and learn from them. And I spoke to Marci champion, Samantha craft, like I spoke to all sorts of people that I know would have something to add and be able to take their advice and their experiences to make it relatable and something that’s actionable for a lot of folks. And also, something that I wanted to flesh out more as well and even getting to talk to people is I got to speak to autistic people and neurodivergent people who spend time in the court system in some way, shape or form. So whether they’ve been the subject of a lawsuit, whether they’ve been through a deposition, whether they’ve had to be on a jury, and they just didn’t know how to handle court, even things like that, that we don’t often think about is there’s something actionable for judges, there’s something actionable for bailiffs and court personnel and even just anyone who might be supporting these folks as well. Like I really wanted to make that abundantly clear that this is and everybody can get something from this. Even if you’re someone who’s never been to court, maybe you might learn Oh my God. It might be really scary if I have to walk through a metal detector. Right? Like, because nobody’s gonna tell you that before you get there, you know?
LB:
Right.
HM:
You don’t realize that security is like airport level.
LB:
Right. Yeah, there’s so many things and you said, you know, the communication, just jury duty, the communication with the with the jury said potential jurors is so poor. Speaking of somebody who’s been, you know, in that seat many times and it’s, it’s, it’s a nightmare for a neurotypical person I can, I mean, just thinking about it now. Yeah, there’s loads of places for improvement in that in that process lots.
HM:
That stuff I want to see from a public policy standpoint, too. And I know that all courts have like Ada coordinators and whatnot, but people don’t know this stuff. They just don’t know where to go. And especially with something so foreign, like dealing with the legal system. And a lot of folks, especially with different disabilities do have more encounters with either law enforcement or the legal system, because they’re victims of crimes, they’re viewed as suspicious, what may it be, but it’s just how do we have these conversations? How do we make it less terrifying? How do we make sure that we’re being more accessible as a system and even with client communication? So I really wanted to do a lot on representation, and even just feel having neurodivergent clients? Like how can we be more accommodating with like, even our office spaces that this goes for not just lawyers, but I think of like doctors and other very technical professions that obviously someone comes to you, when they’re in a crisis are relying on your expertise? How do we make it so that they understand what we’re talking about is how do we make sure that we might be doing something like using plain language in a way that things make sense? How do we make sure someone feels comfortable, especially because a lot of people who are neurodivergent, or people with disabilities are coming from a place that they’re often traumatized, or they might be mistrusting of professionals? Because of previous experiences? Like how do we kind of overcome all of that, and work together, and it’s not that we don’t understand or divergent people, but we aren’t given the tools to work together.
LB:
Right, I talk to people a lot about, especially people with ID, they tend to, you know, acquiesce and, and appear as if they’re understanding and nod their heads and have a lot of nonverbals. That if you’re not paying attention, and asking somebody to repeat what you just said, that you believe that they are with you, and they understand what you’re saying. And that’s, I mean, crucial when speaking to someone who’s a client and involved in a legal situation. It’s so easy for the legal professional to get the impression that the person understands and is with them what they’re saying.
HM:
Or just assume they don’t understand and do what they see fit is best for the client anyway. And that might not be what the client wants?
LB:
Well, that’s a whole different thing, right.
HM:
I think when we talk about intellectual disability in particular, there’s so much more to think about too. And even just how many barriers are in the way because I’m sure there are folks with intellectual disabilities who want to become attorneys and whatnot, too. And there’s so many barriers, whether it’s standardized tests, or that you have to have this very specific education to basically be like be Olympian overachiever of school, and you might not even have those supports in place to even let you get there. Like, it’s not that someone with an intellectual disability can’t do these things, it’s more of that there’s so many barriers that shuts them out. It’s just really interesting to think about, and I think a lot of us do have to mask even when we go into those types of situations, like an act, or appear, like we always understand something because we know that people get very frustrated explaining things twice. And even just, I think about a lot of professionals get frustrated having to repeat themselves or explain things because they think everybody knows what they do and 99% of the time, that’s not the case.
LB:
Right. And that’s, that’s, that’s a very important, I mean, for medical professionals, legal professionals for everybody. And it’s, you know, it’s understandable, right, you’re trying to kind of get through your day, as the professional you’re trying to get through your day and just, you know, get your job done and, you know, work through it. Exactly, you to take time to really recognize that that the individual in front of you is is an individual and they have different pain, everybody is going to process information differently and get information differently.
HM:
Exactly. And that doesn’t make them like broken people or bad human beings, it just means that you have a very different way of, you know, existing.
LB:
Right, right. And so you have to change up your communication with that person and not get frustrated and figure out strategies and skills to communicate more effectively so that the person understands you. So what I’m just kind of switching gears what was the most fun part about this? What was fun?
HM:
I think honestly just talking to people. It was fun. Cuz you really enjoy, I always I always complain or not that I complained. But I always feel like I don’t regularly have mentorship in my career. I also feel like it’s very difficult to have people to look up to. And I think with neurodiversity and disability, a lot of companies, a lot of firms, whoever it may be, thinks that once you get a job, and you’re in the door, that’s where the buck stops, because they get to check off that diversity and inclusion box of See, look, we hired someone who’s neurodivergent, or someone with a disability, look how great we are, and they don’t invest in you. They don’t want to invest in mentoring you or your career growth or trajectory. So I think talking to people in a way was not just validating at times. But I really think as well what I was learning, especially when I was talking to other professionals, when I was talking to other lawyers, and just really trying to get an understanding is that not only was this a common feeling, but in a way so many of these people who are willing to volunteer their time to talk to me. Were mentoring me even though they didn’t realize it. And and I think the really special thing about when I had these conversations is a lot of these folks weren’t necessarily open about being neurodivergent in their careers. So they realized it later in life. And I think when we talk about neuro diversity, we talk about things like autism and ADHD, we often think of men. And what was really interesting is the majority of people who wanted to talk to me, were women and non binary. Interesting, I was not expecting almost every lawyer with ADHD who I spoke to, I’m pretty sure it was a woman. And it just really surprised me. Yeah, that’s interesting, is this whole generation that got diagnosed later in life, or that was diagnosed during law school, who wasn’t really saying anything and just trying to survive? Because of how the profession has historically treated people with different disabilities and mental health and neurodivergent. Like, conditions and traits, it was just so interesting to me.
LB:
Yeah. That’s very interesting. It just,
HM:
And also just getting to spend time with the research and just getting to learn like, Oh, my gosh, I didn’t know that there’s a different employment rate for lawyers with disabilities and salary disparities that go up. The more educated workers with disabilities are the bigger the salad salary disparities, like there’s just all sorts of things you don’t know until you get really deep into it. And I got to talk, and I got to have a lot of different conversations about disclosure and how to go about that. And how like, the law comes in that it was just so interesting, at least for me from a research and writing perspective, and also just getting to humanize it with how did I survive these situations? How did somebody who heads up the big firms diversity and disability affinity group handle this? Like, how is this conversation going? It was just so interesting on so many facets, and I’m not sure if I think it’s interesting, because it’s me, and this is obviously, my child at this point. And I spent so much time just getting too worried about it, getting to edit, getting to write getting to just be involved in the process. And this was essentially my full time job while we were in lockdown. Like this is what I was doing. I was researching and writing. Every day I was learning something new. I was learning about how even David Boies, who was one of the main litigators on Bush v. Gore has dyslexia and how he was very open about that, and how it influenced his career. And that is why he doesn’t use notes, for instance, and trial, and everyone thinks he’s one of the greatest litigators of all time. It’s just so bad, like the cool stuff that you just don’t think about, and then you’re reading about it. And you’re like, how did I not know this?
LB:
There’s a lot to learn a lot to know that’s, and wow, this is great.
HM:
Stuff you don’t think about. And the deeper into it, you go, you’re like, I can’t get out of this. And I’m scared that I’m going to end up writing something that’s 1000 pages, because there’s just so much and I was afraid that I would never feel finished. And I hit the point where like, you know what, if you really think that this is never going to be finished, you just do a second edition when more research comes out, when more right when the profession cracks open even more, and when more professionals want to be part of this conversation. And every year, I think we’re getting closer to that point.
LB:
I do too. Yeah.
HM:
I think it’s pretty exciting.
LB:
So do you feel finished?
HM:
I don’t know. I’m sure that once again, a lot has changed in the last year or two year and a half, almost at this point. And things move so quickly. Right. But I think that it’s gonna run the time comes, I’ll be ready to either do it again, or hopefully follow this up. I think there’s just so much out there and there’s not and at the same time, I think there’s also not enough out there.
LB:
Well, right. You can’t do it all on one book. I No, because there are no this is the first of its kind. So Exactly.
HM:
And I don’t want to, I don’t want to write a textbook right now either. I want something that’s accessible, that you can access that chapter on how like disclosure and how that conversation goes and like, as the neurotypical person in the room, how do you act when somebody discloses to you? How do those things like people ask me those questions regularly? Especially because I do teach self advocacy workshops every so often. And usually, I tell self advocates how to disclose, and then the neurotypical person in the room goes, that’s all great. But when a self advocate says to me, Hey, I have ADHD, hey, I’m autistic, like, What am I supposed to do? Right? Because we all know that it’s kind of harmful when you’re like, Oh, my God, I never would have known or but you don’t look autistic? Like I hate when people do those things to me, right? And I’m like, Well, what would I want someone to say? How would I want someone to act? Because you think Ideally, you want people not to say anything, or not to care. And you’re like, but at the same time, I know, that’s gonna make a neurotypical person uncomfortable, because they obviously do care, they’re not gonna pretend it doesn’t bother them, or they don’t have a reaction of some sort.
LB:
Well, they also want to be supportive too. Exactly.
HM:
So it’s trying to teach them how to be supportive and be like, oh, wow, um, or even like, how can I support you? or What can I do to make you more comfortable? Or thank you for sharing that with me? Or even finding out who else knows? So you don’t accidentally out somebody that doesn’t want to share? Right? Like, even going through how to have those conversations in a respectful and professional way? I mean, obviously, how I would do it with you would have that with your friend is very different than you’d have with someone you’re supervising. Correct. But it’s just kind of that idea is the same no matter what just the language you use to describe it is maybe a little different.
LB:
Right. So what are your big take? I mean, I think we’ve talked about it, but what are you hoping people get from this book?
HM:
Honestly, I hope people feel empowered. I want people not to be I know that for a lot of people talking about disability and neuro diversity is very new. It’s very scary. And it’s something that we just don’t know how to handle very well as a society even think about parents, little kids, who when you see someone with a physical disability, they tell you don’t stare, don’t ask questions. And at the same time, that curiosity is very natural, and it’s okay to ask questions. People don’t often know what’s appropriate, what to do. And instead, they just avoid it altogether. So I kind of want to have people walk away feeling empowered, that they know what to do that they learned something and that chances are, you know, someone who is neurodivergent, whether or not they’re open about it or disclosing to you. So you can use a lot of these types of strategies about how to be more empathetic, how to understand where someone’s coming from, especially neurodivergent people sensor is kind of a empathy problem. And this is something that the research will call it the double empathy probe problem, where neurotypicals don’t always understand how neurodivergent people show empathy and neurodivergent. People don’t understand how neurotypical show empathy, so everybody misunderstands each other. So I hope that people honestly feel that they understand those that they’re around that they understand that there’s ways of being that might not be theirs. And that’s not less, or it’s not a bad thing that needs to be shamed and stigmatized. But it’s just something that we could do better supporting, whether it’s our friends, our loved ones, our colleagues or our clients. Like I just want people to feel I want people to feel empowered, and less afraid, because I know that, especially when we talk about social justice, and we talked about diversity and inclusion, people feel very uncomfortable talking about things that don’t affect them. Or that they don’t know or they’re afraid to offend someone like I know, while we were hosting spec spectrally speaking, we’ve had a lot of difficult conversations about race, right? And we’ve had a lot of very wonderful women and non binary folks come on the show, and they’ve taught us so much, but I know that for us, and I know thinking I’m a little nervous having these conversations, because that’s not an experience that I have, I will not pretend that I understand what it is like to be a black woman in America because I absolutely don’t know what it’s like, right? I probably never will.
LB:
Yeah, I think that’s a fair thing to say.
HM:
And especially like a black autistic person, like I don’t have that experience. I don’t know what it’s like to be marginalized by race. I know what it’s like to be marginalized by disability. I know what it’s like to be marginalized by gender. I know what it’s like to be marginalized by religion, for instance, but I don’t know what it’s like to be marginalized by race. Right. So and I think a lot of folks even entering this conversation who are neurotypical are able bodied in some way have that same feeling as I don’t know what it’s like to be disabled. I don’t know what it’s like to be neurodivergent. But what makes neuro divergence and disability different is it’s in my minority group that you can join at any point in your life. True, true, whether it’s by old age accident or change in changing circumstances, right, right. That’s very true. So I think that demystifying it for so many people and making it more accessible to understand and realizing that we all can do something very actionable to make things better not just for neurodivergent and disabled people. But for all of us, that’s really powerful to walk away with. So I actually try to push for a little bit of that universal design aspect. So what I usually teach universal design stuff, I usually talk about things like captions or things like the curb cut that benefit all of us, even though we don’t realize it benefits all of us. And we use it every day. So when we start from the bottom, look how much we’re able to get done. And look how much it helps everybody for that matter. So I’m really just hoping to help people and hope they walk away feeling empowered.
LB:
That’s amazing. I’m sure that they will, because I, you know, you, you have a very special way of being able to communicate effectively without, you know, with an advocating without alienating, that makes sense. Exactly. I want I want to call people and not call them out. Right, right. And you’re really good at that. You’re really, really yeah, you’re very skillful in that area. So thank you. So I think I can only imagine in the written word, how, how beautiful that eloquent that’s going to be to really looking forward to the book.
HM:
Thank you so much. And I’m really excited for it too. So for those of you who want more information, or who would like to order it, it is available from shop aba.org, where it will be on Amazon in a couple months. And the title is “Great Minds Think Differently: Neurodiversity for Lawyers and Other Professionals”, I’m sure you will see me plug me all over social media and the web soon enough. Because that is kind of part of the job. And also, I’m just really excited.
LB:
I really I love the title, I can’t get over it. It’s such a great title. And it falls right in the different brains mission to I love it. I really love it.
HM:
I actually got the idea for the title because I was doing a CLE on neurodiversity actually. And it was great minds Don’t think like neuro diversity and like the practice. And I was like, Yeah, but everyone thinks great mind seeing like, it’s like what great minds think differently. I love it. Like I liked the idea because we always say think differently. Think outside the box. Right? All right. Sounds like I wanted to take a play on that. That’s great. It really just make it make sense for people.
LB:
It’s perfect. It’s really perfect. It’s really great.
HM:
Because we do think that great minds think alike. And turns out the opposite is true.
LB:
Exactly. Exactly. We need we need different brains to always to see problems in different ways and help us problem solve. And I mean, it just so many ways. It’s awesome.
HM:
I’m just really excited.
LB:
Me too, really proud of you, Haley, this is really exciting.
HM:
Thank you so much. And I know that we will definitely have more conversations about some of these issues and things too. And I know our guests have a lot to add on some of these subjects. Like I said, I even got to talk to some of our past guests. Right. So it’s been just really cool. Yeah, yeah. So I think that about wraps up our conversation for now in my exciting news, because I could just be here all day and geek about it, but I know that everyone’s attention span is what it is. And people also are very busy, so be sure to check out differentbrains.org and check out their Twitter and Instagram @DiffBrains. And don’t forget to look for them on Facebook. If you’re looking for me, you can find me at Haley moss dotnet and you can find me on all major social media @HaleyMossart. If you’re looking for “Great Minds Think Differently: Neurodiversity for Lawyers and Other Professionals”, there will be a link to order on my website as well as throughout social media. Or you can just visit shop aba.org
LB:
I can be found at CFIexperts.com please be sure to subscribe and rate us on iTunes and don’t hesitate to send questions to spectrumlyspeaking@gmail.com. Let’s keep the conversation going.
Spectrumly Speaking is the podcast dedicated to women on the autism spectrum, produced by Different Brains®. Every other week, join our hosts Haley Moss (an autism self-advocate, attorney, artist, and author) and Dr. Lori Butts (a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist, and licensed attorney) as they discuss topics and news stories, share personal stories, and interview some of the most fascinating voices from the autism community.
