PUBLISHED FRIDAY, MAY. 15, 2009

It is easy to imagine Sara Granda in a courtroom, questioning witnesses, challenging the opposition, fighting for justice with the force of her big personality.

A ventilator, which she needs to breathe, would hang from the back of her wheelchair. An assistant would help her flip through files, since she cannot move her hands or arms. When she approaches the bench, she would maneuver her chair using her tongue.

Big deal? Not to Granda, who will be among 190 women and men who will graduate Saturday from UC Davis School of Law.

"So much of what happens in the courtroom is theater," said Granda, 29, who has lived out her own drama since she became paralyzed from the neck down at age 17. "I'm not sure how much time I will spend in court as an attorney. But I know I could do it."

UC Davis law school Dean Kevin Johnson, for one, offers no argument.

"I have never met anyone like Sara in my life," said Johnson. "It's not within her to quit on anything."

In July 1997, Granda was a month away from starting classes on full scholarship at Cal Poly San Luis Obisp when the car she was driving ran off the road and flipped three times. The crash left her without the use of her arms and legs and dependent on a mechanical device to breathe.

Since then, accomplishing even the smallest things, from getting out of bed to scratching her nose, has been a battle.

After her injury, Granda spent close to three years in six different facilities, and she and her family had to fight for insurance to pay for the constant care she needs to live outside a hospital. She has had to hire people to attend to her around the clock, helping her with everything from bathing and eating to applying her meticulous makeup and getting her to her many appointments on time.

College was a new challenge. Granda needed people to help her study and take notes and tests. She graduated from California State University, Sacramento, with a degree in social work. She followed that with a master's degree in the same field. Between classes and study sessions, she worked, traveled, dated and partied with friends.

"Just like anyone else," she said. "Only it was about three times harder for me."

Then law school, where the intellectual challenge was huge and the physical obstacles immense. She studied four or five hours a night, and at times had trouble keeping up.

"It's a full-time job," said Granda on a recent afternoon, as a physical therapist worked on the muscles in her back and neck. "It's about stamina and endurance and managing your time. I had never been given a B or a C before in my whole life. The professors at UC Davis never gave me any breaks or treated me differently from anyone else. That was good, but I was totally demoralized at times."

UC Davis was less than equipped, at first, to deal with someone with Granda's disabilities, she said. She navigated cramped elevators, classrooms that were hard for her to enter and leave, and a lack of assistants who could help her manage her studies.

"But there was no way I was going to allow those things to keep me from finishing school," she said.

So, once again, Granda fought for help and accessibility. She got it, and her path got easier. Still, she said, people questioned her abilities, nurses sometimes failed to show up and a romance ended in heartbreak and caused distraction.

"Every week I wanted to give up," Granda said. And every week, she reminded herself of the advice of her parents. Her mother, Beverly, is a registered nurse. Her father, Jose, is a mechanical engineering professor. They kept their expectations for their daughter high even after Sara was hurt.

"My mother told me after the accident that there would be many times I would fall on my face, but that I just had to get up and keep going," she said.

So Granda did.

Saturday, three years after entering law school, she will receive her diploma from UC Davis.

"I told Sara back when we were involved in the insurance battles that as a disabled person she would always have to fight for her rights," Beverly Granda said. "I told her, 'You need to run a powerful state agency or you need to be a lawyer, to protect your rights and the rights of others.' I am so proud of her."

The law school dean thinks Granda will make a fine attorney.

"She is determined and intelligent and a little bit sassy," said Johnson, who got to know Granda as an adviser to the school's La Raza Legal Foundation for Latin students. This year, Granda won the group's Lorenzo Patino Community Service Award, given to an outstanding graduating student. Granda has been active in various clubs on campus and helped organize the first National Association of Law Students With Disabilities conference.

"She is forceful and confident, and she doesn't take herself too seriously," Johnson said. "Sara is extraordinary."

Victoria Landis, a young registered nurse and one of Granda's attendants, said her friend is a daily inspiration.

"I live vicariously through her, and I really admire her," said Landis.

"Just taking a breath, for her, is something she has to manage. But she still does everything that everyone else her age does."

But Granda is not ready to congratulate herself just yet. She still has to take and pass the California bar exam, she pointed out.

"I'm a little worried about the bar," Granda admitted. "It's no joke."

Assuming she gets past that obstacle, she will have to find a job in a tough economy.

Granda, who speaks fluent Spanish, currently is working at a clinic where she helps immigrants with legal problems. It has been rewarding, she said, but ultimately she hopes to have a career in health policy, an issue that she has mastered both firsthand and in the classroom. She is prepared for a rigorous job search.

"It's definitely not a great time to be looking," Granda said with a shrug. "I don't know what is going to happen. But things will work out somehow."

No one who knows Granda has any doubt.