AIDS patient takes on state bar after his firing

Birusk Tugan

Tuesday, June 20, 2000 | 11:58 a.m.

For 11 years Paul Ortiz helped people find a lawyer. He knew everyone in "the business." But when he needed a lawyer for himself, Ortiz, 33, couldn't find anyone willing to represent him.

No lawyer would take his case because Ortiz wanted to sue his former employer, the Nevada State Bar Association, where he worked for eight months until August 1998.

The state bar fired him from his job as a lawyer referral and information service assistant two months after he informed his supervisor that he had AIDS, Ortiz said at a press conference Monday in Las Vegas.

"I was discriminated against because of my disease. My medical bills were costing the bar too much," Ortiz said.

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last month determined that evidence supports Ortiz' claim that he was discharged because of his disability and gave the state bar a Friday deadline to settle his case.

Ortiz said he had received several positive comments and remarks about his work until Stacie Murphy, then assistant executive director of the Nevada Bar, told him that "things weren't working out."

"I (felt) that I was just left out there," Ortiz said.

His main concern was health benefits, considering that his medical bills cost up to $2,500 a month. He started seeing a therapist for depression. He said he became dependent on his partner, Drew Mcculach, and his family.

"Every day has been a constant battle for Paul. Finding out about the disease, medication, trying to find a lawyer," said Mcculach, who introduced himself at the press conference as Ortiz' partner for the last nine years.

"This is a very big day for us to be here to get this out to the public," Mccullach said.

During a federal settlement conference last June, Ortiz asked to be reinstated in his position, but the state bar declined.

He now has another job and speaks very highly of his employer, who is aware of his situation and allowed him off to attend the press conference.

Ortiz had worked for several law offices as a paralegal and legal assistant in Los Angeles before moving to Las Vegas three years ago.

Monday's press conference was held by the Nevada Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union to announce that a Las Vegas attorney, Richard Segerblom, has agreed to take on the bar for Ortiz. The paralegal had been forced to hire Vicki Laden, a San Francisco lawyer, to work on his case when he couldn't find a Nevada lawyer willing to represent him.

Gary Peck, executive director of the Nevada ACLU, called the bar's dealing with Ortiz "grotesquely insensitive."

"Shame on the state Bar of Nevada. I am calling on our leaders to loudly and uniformly express their rage at the way the bar has handled this case," Peck said.

Segerblom said if the bar doesn't offer a settlement by the Friday deadline, he is ready to take the matter to the court. The lawyer wants the bar to pay Ortiz $100,000 as compensation for losing his job.

"So far they have said 'Hell no, we haven't done anything wrong and we are not offering him anything,' " Segerblom said.

Patty Blakeman, director of communications at the Nevada Bar Association, said, "We have been in good faith negotiations with the EEOC. Nothing has been established to say there has been a wrongdoing."

Tulio Diaz, acting district director of the Los Angeles regional office of the EEOC, wrote in his determination on May 24 that he has concluded that the evidence is sufficient to establish a violation of Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal law that bans discrimination against people with disabilities. The 1990 law protects people with AIDS.

The commission wants the bar to pay for the damages and hold some in-house training. Agencies charged with discrimination are required to hold "sensitivity seminars."