Welcome to Disability Rights Advocates
Larry Paradis is the Executive Director and Co-Director of Litigation for Disability Rights Advocates (DRA). Larry specializes in class action and other high impact disability rights litigation. He has handled many precedent-setting ADA cases in areas such as employment, housing, transportation, education, insurance, and public accommodations. Larry was recently named by California Lawyer Magazine one of California's Lawyers of the Year for his victories in civil rights cases in 2003. In 2004, Larry was voted, along with his co-counsel, Trial Lawyer of the Year by the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association. Larry is a past member of the President's Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities and has been on the boards of many advocacy organizations such as the Berkeley Center for Independent Living, National Council on Disability: International Watch Committee, American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, Berkeley Commission on Disability, Disability Statistics Center at UCSF (Advisory Board), UCSF Center for Personal Assistance Services Advisory Committee.
Larry has also assisted the courts as a court appointed mediator, as a Ninth Circuit Judicial Council Lawyer Representative from the U.S. District Court for Northern District of California and as a member of a Magistrate Judge Selection Panel, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Larry graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School where he was a member of the Civil Rights/Civil Liberties Law Journal. After law school, he joined the law firm Miller, Starr and Regalia, where he focused on complex business litigation as well as pro bono civil rights work. Larry worked at Miller, Starr and Regalia for ten years, first as an associate and then as a partner. He then left his business law firm to co-found and direct Disability Rights Advocates.
