Sara Granda, paralyzed from the neck down, is more than capable of a good fight. As a newly minted lawyer, she is taking on a formidable opponent: the State Bar of California.
Granda, 29, graduated in May from the UC Davis School of Law and for months has been preparing for the bar examination, scheduled for Tuesday. She has spent as much as eight hours a day studying, she said.
The state, which has funded her education because she is disabled, has spent thousands of dollars on preparatory courses and fees for the exam.
Despite her meticulous planning and earlier assurances that everything was in place for her to take the test, Granda said the State Bar told her last week that she is not properly registered and cannot take the exam next week like the rest of her classmates.
"It's a ridiculous snafu to say the least," she said in an interview. "It's really devastating."
Granda went to federal court in Sacramento this week to seek a restraining order prohibiting the bar from excluding her. Otherwise, she said, she will have to wait until February, requiring the investment of more hours and thousands more state dollars to prepare, and compromising several jobs that she is seeking.
The bar said its Web site never processed Granda's application for the test because the state Department of Rehabilitation paid her $600 fee with a check rather than Granda using a credit cardonline. Granda, whose only source of income is an $870 monthly disability payment and who doesn't own a credit card, said she checked with a State Bar representative several times after the check was sent and received assurances that she was properly registered.
She argues that the bar is depriving her of her rights under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. The bar contends that it operates only under the jurisdiction of the state Supreme Court,so Granda's action has no place in federal court.
In an interview, the bar's deputy executive director, Robert Hawley,said the group would oppose Granda's petition in the Supreme Court as well.
Granda hopes to file such a petition with the help of Sacramento attorney Stewart Katz.He said he will have papers on file with the state high court Monday morning, asking for an order allowing Granda to take the exam.
"It's hard for me to fathom how an organization whose members are supposed to be devoted to a search for justice can turn its back on Ms. Granda," said Katz, who is working without compensation.
Hawley said there are "a handful of people" who miss deadlines for every exam, all with "very compelling reasons."
"It's a high-tech process, and people need to maneuver it successfully, and we can't be in the business of helping any one person out with it," he said. "That takes us down a path that ends up in a place we don't want to be. How do you then choose which ones to help and which you don't?"
U.S. District Court Judge Morrison C. England Jr. on Friday denied Granda's request for intervention and said he ruled quickly to give her time to seek help elsewhere.
Granda was surprised and disappointed by the ruling but said she will continue her fight until time runs out.
"This is an utter waste of a ton of money that nobody really has at this point, especially the state," she said. "At this point, I'm fighting the clock, and it's just not right."
Granda became a quadriplegic in July 1997 as the result of a car crash just a month before she was to start classes on a full scholarship at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. She spent close to three years in six different medical facilities, and she and her family have had to battle insurance companies to pay for the constant care she needs to live outside a hospital.
With the help of many assistants, including a scribe who took dictation, Granda earned undergraduate and master's degrees, and finally a law degree. She began studying in earnest for the State Bar examination, communicating with the organization through its Web site and by phone, and searching for potential jobs, most of which required passing the bar exam.
The state Department of Rehabilitation paid $4,700 for courses to prepare her for the test, according to the court papers. In March, the state paid her exam fees. Then, as directed by the bar, Granda said, she filled out an online application. But the application never was processed because the fees were not paid online, and now it is too late to make accommodations for her, according to the bar.