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Perseverance in Profile


LAUREN DEBRUICKER: ADVOCATE ON WHEELS BY TOM CALARCO


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When attorney Lauren DeBruicker rolls into the courtroom in her wheelchair, it often disarms her opponents. She says they have a tendency to underestimate her because she is a quadriplegic. It doesn’t concern her. Rather, she welcomes it because it gives her an advantage.


“I’ve learned to run with it as far as I can,” she says.


And by the time they realize they’re up against a “quad,” as she describes herself, with some serious legal skills, it’s too late.


“My co-counsel in one case dubbed me the ‘B-word on wheels’,” she jokes. “In the context of litigation, I’ve decided it was a compliment.”


H DIVERSITY & THE BAR® MARCH/APRIL 2013


ard work and exceptional public speaking skills have earned DeBruicker a position as a partner in the trial practice group of Duane Morris in Philadelphia. Growing up in


Philadelphia, DeBruicker never envisioned becom- ing a lawyer or requiring the use of a wheelchair. She was a studious tomboy who liked to


play sports. Te older of two children, she was sent to an all-girls school from the outset. “My dad never wanted me to be judged based on my gen-


der but on my abilities,” she says. “It was a great place to grow and figure out who I was. Some of my classmates thought it was torture, but I loved the small classes and the chance to be a big fish in a small pond. It was a real privilege.” She decided she wanted a change of pace for college and


went West, enrolling at Stanford University. Just before the start of her sophomore year, she was making the long cross-country drive back to school from Philadelphia when an accident left her permanently paralyzed in all her limbs. After surgery and six months of rehabilitation, she returned to school with just enough movement in her arms to push her wheelchair, but no use of her hands or legs.


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