Perseverance in Profile
JIM MERKLINGER: ADVOCATE FOR TOURETTE’S SYNDROME BY TOM CALARCO
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He’s been known as “Merk” all his life, just a regular guy with more than his fair share of intelligence and athletic ability. But success hasn’t come easily to Jim Merklinger, vice president and general counsel of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) in Washington, D.C., a leading global bar association that serves as the “voice” for the in-house counsel community.
in third grade, I knew I was odd, so they put me in a special ed reading class. It was in a room like a closet.” Tis placement came despite Merklinger’s stellar perfor-
D DIVERSITY & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2012
mance as a student. But Tourette’s can be a bit disconcerting to someone who does not understand it, and this was in the 1970s, when medical science was just beginning to attribute the syndrome’s manifestations to a neurological condition. Prior to this, people with it were thought to be mentally ill. Merklinger wasn’t diagnosed, however, until he was 14. “Tey tested me for everything, all kinds of doctors, and
I was misdiagnosed for seven years,” Merklinger says. “One doctor wanted to have me institutionalized.” Finally, his parents took him to a neurologist, Dr. Lee
Palinsky, who identified his condition. “It was a relief to know what it was,” Merklinger says. It allowed Merklinger to move on with his life and to set
espite his down- to-earth
persona, Merklinger has always been a little different because along with his per- sonal gifts, he was born with Tourette’s Syndrome. “Tourette’s is involuntary, like
having hiccups,” Merklinger says of the tics, the name given to the vocaliza- tions and physical gestures that are the manifestations of Tourette’s. “Early on
some goals. But he also realized that he might have to do it a little differently than most people. “I was always a curious person who wanted to continue
learning,” he says, “and realizing I was at a disadvantage and couldn’t learn the traditional ways, I had to find my own.” After being diagnosed, he was prescribed a variety of
medications, none of which worked very well for him. “Tey slow you down and make you sluggish,” he says,
“and there were too many side effects.” After going on and off the medications, he eventually
stopped taking them after his first semester in college. A saving grace for Merklinger was his athletic ability.
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