“I see you” – She’s a lawyer, a mom and an advocate for children with special needs

NJ lawyer Joanna Adu knows the challenges parents face, especially those who have children with special needs. She’s made helping them a speciality. Read about her here.

During college, Joanna Adu decided against a legal career. Five years post-graduation, she was living in Seattle and working in retail banking, the single mother of a son with a disability. At one meeting, a branch manager posed this icebreaker: What would you do if you had no fear of failure?

“I didn’t even have to think about it,” remembers Adu, 39. “I said I would go to law school.”

She had begun reconsidering the career a few months earlier as she was weighing opportunities for her preschool-age son. Stanley, now 13, has autism spectrum disorder. He’d been accepted into a Seattle Public Schools early intervention program, but navigating the general education system was complex.

“I was starting to understand what this lifelong journey would be like for my son and the resources he’d need,” she says. “It ultimately brought me back to wanting to go to law school to help parents like myself.”

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