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Mikita Presenting Professionalism Speech
Article Date: 5/25/2005
Gray Wilson’s “hero” is coming to the Annual Meeting.
| Click here for complete NCBA Annual Meeting information. | His name is Steve Mikita. He’s an assistant attorney general for the State of Utah’s Division of Children’s Justice.
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Steve Mikita, the 2005 Willis Smith and Willis Smith Jr. professionalism speaker.
| North Carolina Bar Association members may remember him from North Carolina Lawyer, wherein the NCBA president announced that his longtime friend and “hero” would address the 107th Annual Meeting, scheduled June 23-26 at the Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa in Asheville.
Some may also know Mikita from “60 Minutes,” where he was interviewed by Mike Wallace, or the ABA Journal, where he was featured on the
cover as an advocate for disability rights.
“There are heroes in the legal profession,” Wilson wrote in introducing Mikita, the 2005 Willis Smith and Willis Smith Jr. professionalism speaker who will speak during the President’s Luncheon on Friday, June 25.
“Some of these labor under physical disabilities that render the simple task of getting to the office every day an arduous task. Once there, the multitude of ministerial tasks most lawyers take for granted present great obstacles to attorneys laboring under the burden of a physical handicap.”
Mikita, Wilson continued, is one such lawyer.
“Steve Mikita was born with Werdnig-Hoffman Disease, a degenerative neuromuscular disorder. He entered life neurologically impaired, confined to a wheelchair and dependent on others for his daily needs.
“But Steve’s mind and spirit were unimpaired.”
Wilson met Mikita three decades ago at Duke University, where the former was attending law school and Mikita was conquering obstacles oft unseen to others as “the first severely handicapped student to attend the undergraduate institution.”
The two remained close friends in spite of the fact that Wilson stayed in North Carolina while Mikita moved to Utah, where he earned his law degree at Brigham Young University.
Mikita has served as an assistant attorney general since 1981. A revered motivational speaker, he also teaches law at BYU.
In addition to his formal speaking duties, Mikita will participate in events coinciding with the NCBA’s new Disability Law Committee, including a Disability Law Roundtable Discussion.
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