Joseph C Russo

Joe Russo, 59, a passionate, lifelong advocate for the rights of people with disabilities, passed away on April 1, 2024, at his home in Chicago, Illinois. One of the first attorneys hired by the U.S. Department of Justice to enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act, he devoted his entire career to public service, working across the country and at all levels of government, fighting to make the human-built world accessible to all people. He was also kind, funny, and generous – a magnetic storyteller and raconteur, who gave freely of himself, drew people to him through their laughter, and left an indelible impression upon everyone he ever met.

Joseph Charles Russo was born on March 21, 1965, in Queens, New York, the son of Pat and Marilyn Russo. He was raised on Long Island, surrounded by a large and loving family. Joe was born with osteogenesis imperfecta (a condition which, among other things, makes bones fragile), and, for most of his life, used a wheelchair for mobility. Joe was an active kid who loved wheelchair sports, so his childhood years included more than a few fractures, requiring frequent, sometimes lengthy, hospital stays, and showing up for his first day of nursery school in a full body cast.

Joe went to a school for kids with disabilities now known as the Henry Viscardi School, where he made friends so memorable that he would tell stories about them all his life. A teacher there helped to find him a smaller wheelchair to fit his body, which changed everything: once he learned how to spin wheelies, he never looked back. Joe played wheelchair basketball as a member of the “Cyclones,” and hockey, and excelled at wheelchair racing. His love for playing and watching sports started early, and once he picked his teams – the Jets, Yankees, Islanders, Knicks, and later the Washington Capitals – he stuck with them for life.

Beyond his parents and sister, Joe was close to his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. He loved his extended family, and the Russo house was always warm and welcoming. For the rest of his life, Joe would recreate his love of family in the way he embraced his friends and colleagues, annually hosting huge Thanksgiving dinners in Washington, D.C. for everyone who couldn’t travel to their home states. He made everyone he worked with, from interns to bosses, feel like family.

Joe went to Georgetown University, followed by the NYU School of Law. He wrote for the NYU Review of Law & Social Change and organized one of the first academic conferences to unite the physical and mental disability communities in one setting. After passing the bar – and a quick backpacking trip to Europe with law school friends – Joe worked for the law firm of Hogan & Hartson before serving as the founding staff attorney for the National Disability Action Center (NDAC), where, among other things, he used cases from the 1800s to establish the constitutional right of people who are blind to serve on a jury.

In 1992, Joe became one of the first trial attorneys hired by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice to enforce the newly enacted ADA, and was responsible for handling much of the most significant litigation brought in the early days of the statute, including the first case successfully defending its constitutionality. He negotiated several of the first groundbreaking settlements as well, including convincing the Empire State Building’s owners to create cut-outs in its observation deck walls to make the view accessible to people with disabilities. When the 1996 Olympic Games came to Atlanta, he worked to establish the federal standard for accessible stadium seating, ensuring that not only the Summer Games and Paralympics, but all live stadium events throughout the country, could be enjoyed by fans everywhere. Later, he successfully challenged a nationwide chain of stadium-style movie theaters that had been designed with bottom-row-only wheelchair seating; a large metropolitan police department that denied reassignment to officers disabled in the line of duty; and one of the top hospitals in the country that had refused to perform heart surgery on people with HIV/AIDS. It was also at DOJ where Joe met and married the love of his life, Bebe Novich, a fellow trial attorney who shared his passion for disability rights (and, thanks to Joe, hockey).

As joyful as he was at heart, Joe was serious about his work, and he didn't suffer fools gladly. He had learned advocacy at home, watching his mother fight for him and his sister, and he used his own experience of discrimination to hone his skills, as well as those of the dozens of younger attorneys and investigators whom he mentored over the years. Knowing he was in a position to speak for so many who could not, he fought hard for every inch of progress, pushing the law forward at every turn, and was a formidable opponent. He didn't pull his punches with colleagues or superiors, either. Joe spoke truth to power, sometimes causing the friction necessary to provoke change. More often, he deployed his quiet strength, humor, and considerable personal charm in the negotiating room, disarming the other side before they could realize what was happening.

After more than a dozen highly productive years at DOJ, Joe left Washington for Chicago, to serve first as Chief of the Disability Rights Bureau of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, and then as Deputy Commissioner of Compliance for the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities at the City of Chicago. In both roles, he advised elected leaders (the State Attorney General and the Mayor, respectively), and managed a team of people dedicated to ensuring the accessibility of all public and private facilities. He also taught disability rights law to future lawyers as an adjunct law professor with The University of Illinois Chicago School of Law, and served on the boards of several nonprofit organizations, including the Center for Disability & Elder Law, and Openlands, a conservation group.

During his last few years, challenged by the pandemic and a series of injuries that impacted his mobility, Joe finally turned to his lifelong dream (and widely suspected talent) of writing and performing, taking classes and participating in GeNarrations, a storytelling performance workshop of the Goodman Theatre of Chicago. He wrote and performed several moving and funny stories about his life, to the acclaim of everyone who heard them. He was also working on a screenplay, based on a story idea that had first come to him decades earlier, about a kid with a disability just trying to belong.

Joe is survived by Bebe Novich, his wife and partner for the last 30 years; his mother, Marilyn Russo; his sister, L. Mary Russo; his uncle and aunt, Daniel and Margaret Caroleo; his sister-in-law Nina (Stephen) Smith, and nephews Justin Smith (Lauren Lesce) and Mitchell Smith (Lia Limauig); numerous cousins; devoted friends all over the country; and his beloved dog, Lucy, and, in Joe’s words, his “obstreperous” cat, Auggie. He was predeceased by his father, Pat Russo.

Joe will be interred in his family plot at the Our Lady Queen of Heaven cemetery in North Lauderdale, Florida. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Joe’s name to the Center for Disability & Elder Law (https://www.cdelaw.org/in-memory-of-joseph-russo), which provides free legal services to low-income seniors and people with disabilities, or to GeNarrations, the storytelling performance workshop of the Goodman Theatre of Chicago (https://my.goodmantheatre.org/donate/contribute1/) (select “Honor or Memorial Gift” “in memory of a loved one” for “Education”), where Joe spent many happy hours and days doing what he did best: telling stories that moved the world forward, and making people laugh.

A visitation for Joseph will be held Friday, April 19, 2024 from 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM at Babione - Kraeer Funeral Home and Cremation Center, 1100 North Federal Highway, Boca Raton, FL 33432.