(Reuters) - Breaking barriers can be both a privilege and a burden.

It's something that Laura Wolk, who just finished clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, feels keenly.

Wolk, 33, has been completely blind since she was 15 months old as a result of the eye cancer retinoblastoma. And she's got a message: Don't underestimate what she and other people with disabilities can do.

"One of the biggest barriers is low expectations," she told me in a wide-ranging interview about practicing law while blind.

At the same time, she feels self-imposed pressure to be more than just competent — that as a blind lawyer she wants to do "extremely well, so you don't hamper someone else coming after you," she said. "There are moments when I feel like I'm carrying a lot."

She's set to rejoin Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, D.C., as a senior associate next month, working in the firm's appellate practice under the mentorship of legal luminaries Paul Clement, Erin Murphy, Craig Primis and John O'Quinn.

Primis calls her an inspiration, praising her top-notch legal skills and character. "Laura has educated us about the challenges blind lawyers have faced in the industry — and they are significant," he said.

It's not clear how many blind or visually impaired lawyers there are in the United States. A spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind said the organization doesn't track numbers, nor was Wolk aware of any statistics, though she noted that overall, 70% of the nation's 7.7 million visually disabled people are not employed full-time.

A few blind lawyers are quite prominent, including Judge David Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, who lost his eyesight after law school in 1972 due to retinitis pigmentosa. Michigan Supreme Court Justice Richard Bernstein has been legally blind since birth.

But in Big Law, fully blind lawyers are rare. And when it comes to arguably the most prestigious, competitive law job there is — U.S. Supreme Court clerk — Wolk is the first-ever blind woman to hold the position.

She's not the first blind clerk though — Isaac Lidsky, who is now a speaker, author and entrepreneur, clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor for the 2008-2009 term.

As is customary, Wolk applied to clerk for all nine justices, but said she hoped to be selected by Thomas, whom she describes as a role model. "Our experiences are quite different," Wolk said, but she was impressed by how in his autobiography he described responding to adversity and discrimination.

Thomas did not respond to a request for comment.

When Wolk made it to the final round of interviews and met the justice for the first time, she said it felt "like instantly talking to an old friend." And while Thomas may be reticent in court, Wolk described his presence in chambers as "joyful."

As she walked out the door, Wolk recalled, she knew that even if she didn't get the job, she'd always be grateful that she got to meet him.

When she got the job, she said, it felt "surreal" — and the feeling never really went away all year.

How did she manage the actual work?

Wolk said she uses a computer screen reader program, which converts text to speech. She also relies on a refreshable Braille display - a rectangular device that connects to her computer and translates content to Braille using round-tipped pins that raise and lower.

To navigate, she uses a cane, appreciating the spatial awareness of her surroundings it conveys. She said she's also considered getting a service dog. She's an avid runner and a dog could allow her to do that independently, she said.

Born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Wolk didn't know any lawyers growing up and initially planned on getting a Ph.D. in psychology. But after she attended a bioethics conference (for fun) at Notre Dame Law School and met Professor Carter Snead, she realized a J.D. offered many career options.

To date, she's followed the straight path of a budding legal star. Her first clerkship in 2016 was straight out of law school with (now retired) Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

At the D.C. Circuit, Wolk said she also had the chance to interact with Tatel, though she noted that the judge's "choice of strategies and technologies looked very different from my own."

She added, "I think that having Judge Tatel and I working there at the same time helped to teach the D.C. Circuit that just because two people have the same disability does not mean that they will require the same accommodations or technology."

She followed that clerkship with one at the 3rd Circuit for Judge Thomas Hardiman, and then joined Kirkland for nine months before leaving in July of 2019 for the Supreme Court.

Primis described her first tour of duty at Kirkland as a learning experience on all sides. After Wolk left, the firm hired consultants to ensure that all of its systems would be "fully compatible with the technology Laura needs to do her job at the highest level," Primis said. He added that the partnership "made the investment without knowing whether Laura would return or not" because they wanted to lead the way in accessibility.

Wolk said it was an easy call to rejoin Kirkland, praising the firm's openness to recruiting candidates with all forms of disabilities, not just blindness.

"You can't legislate that. It has to come from the actual people," she said. "It's why I came back."