Thirty years ago, when I started working in law, the City was a place where people said openly racist and sexist things. They would probably also have described themselves as 'realistic' (meaning the reverse) about the impact of disabilities. I had to conceal my deafness at interview and the fact that it was worsening thereafter. If I hadn't, my career as a City lawyer would likely have stalled – assuming I'd ever managed to get it started. 

I am now profoundly deaf and have been for years. I could not have got a job in a City firm in the 1980s with this level of hearing loss. Could I today? The diversity movement is having some impact on disability recruitment so perhaps I could. All other things being equal, would my hearing loss prevent me making partner? I can pull my financial weight like any other partner, but, if I was starting out now, I still think it might.

Why? True, the diversity movement might get me an interview and a job, but the risk, particularly with sensory disabilities, is one of different treatment thereafter. In rare cases, despite legal issues, a firm might decline to provide disabled people with the facilities they need to do their job on equal terms. More commonly, a disabled person is at risk of being side-lined or placed in teams configured to duplicate their role. 

Despite the reduced chances of career progression, many disabled people still try their hand. Disabilities are sometimes described as 'desirable disadvantages' in that they can encourage many of those who have them to be resourceful and tenacious. A few extra hurdles, however unfair, won't stop these people. But the issue is not simply one of fairness. It is one of dignity. Stories of colleagues subtly patronising disabled lawyers, stigmatising their disabilities, excluding them or making no effort to ensure they can participate are commonplace. 

The current fashion is to see these attitudes as 'unconscious bias' and some might be. But much is just top-down thinking, where firms believe their own hype: 'Because I don't see myself as prejudiced, what I'm doing can't be wrong.' I think these top-down thinkers are the minority. Most City lawyers, particularly the younger ones, are prepared to consider the possibility that things might be wrong, and want to help put them right. Their main concern is how to go about it.

Last year with two friends I formed a charity, City Disabilities.  We have spent many hours speaking to disabled law students, university careers advisers and lawyers in the City, both to those who have disclosed disabilities and those who haven't. We've learned a lot about the problems disabled lawyers face in City law firms. We offer mentoring schemes and put them in touch with each other, creating an independent grapevine where people can discuss their experiences at firms openly and free from pressure.

We can also assist employers. We will come to your firm and discuss the issues disabled lawyers face and how they hope to be treated. We will tell you how things can go wrong and about the more subtle City-style practices that so frequently cause offence.

We ask one thing in return: that we get to make a difference to how people are treated after they have been recruited. One of the problems lawyers with disabilities face is that the people who promote the firm and its values for recruitment purposes are not usually the ones who run it. The result is the so-called disconnect between aspiration and reality. So, whoever we speak to, we include HR personnel and partners.

We won't put your firm logo on our website or offer you any awards (and we won't charge you either). People with disabilities will hear about us soon enough. So will those without them. It isn't just disabled people who want to work in places where policies reflect reality, so let's work together to sort this out.

Robert Hunter is writing in his capacity as a trustee of City Disabilities, a not for profit organisation www.citydisabilities.org.uk