Brain Surgery Survivor Faces Law School Obstacle

It’s been almost seven years since Lisa Rousso woke up with a strange fogginess in her head – she compared the feeling to jetlag after a transcontinental flight – and was diagnosed with a mysterious brain lesion. One month later, the gray matter was removed from her brain’s parietal lobe – the area responsible for processing information and sensory stimuli.

Rousso has recovered, but not completely. While she shows no obvious signs of impairment at first glance, she said she experiences a delay in processing complex information. Her functionality and intelligence is there, only it takes more time to do mental work than it had before.

The last three months have been hectic for Rousso; on top of spending nearly every day in class or studying for the Dec. 3 law school admissions test (LSAT), the mother of three has been fighting to receive accommodations that would allow her the time she needs to take the test. Getting a decent score is the first step toward getting into law school and getting a degree, which Rousso wants to use to advocate for children with special needs.

“I’m frustrated because I want to do a good thing and it just feels like I’m being blocked,” Rousso said. As president of the Kings Park Council of Schools, she has a strong background in meeting students’ educational needs, she said, but needs a law degree to do the kind of work she wants to do.

She has been asking the Law School Admissions Council for more time to take the half-day test, which the organization administers four times each year to provide a “standard measure of acquired reading and verbal reasoning skills” to law schools throughout the country, according to the LSAC’s website.

Rousso’s condition is known as Cognitive Disorder NOS, and under the Americans with Disabilities Act she is guaranteed testing modifications to ensure that it is her ability that is evaluated rather than her condition, according to her lawyer, Jo Anne Simon.

The council has not granted Rousso’s request, asking only for more information but not specifying what it is looking for, Rousso said. First told that her application was never received, she said she filed it two more times only to be told it was deficient, but not how. Unable to contact anyone with the council due to the Pennsylvania-based organization’s rules concerning applicants, Rousso hired Simon to resubmit the documents.

Simon received a letter from the council 10 days later dismissing her neuropsychological evaluation which asserted that her condition was permanent. It asked for a new one.

“There is no pertinent reason for people to have reevaluations for kicks,” Simon said. As to the LSAC’s reticence, she said she could only speculate, as the organization has been “cryptic” in its communications.

“In my experience there is a fair amount of suspicion on the part of the LSAC, and they try to deal with that by asking for more information,” said Simon, who has handled numerous similar cases. “There seems to be a strong expectation that people applying should know what they’re driving at without them telling,” she said.

Simon filed a federal lawsuit on Nov. 29. The council has 20 days to answer, but it all comes too late for Rousso’s test, which she said she took Saturday and performed as she had on the practice tests, making it through only half of the material. The next test is in early February, and Rousso will need to take it if she hopes to be admitted to a law school next year. This means more grueling preparation without any assurance that she will be given the accommodations she is seeking.

“It doesn’t have to do with me going to law school, whether I should or shouldn’t, or how I’ll do, or what kind of attorney I’ll be,” she said. “It’s the denial of the rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act.”