[blindlaw] Law School Experiences

Graham Hardy graham.hardy at gmail.com
Wed Aug 11 19:04:21 UTC 2010


Kolby,

I might be able to help you a lot. I'm about to start law school this
September at the University of British Columbia. It won't matter if you're
intending to go to an American school because most things about experiences
at law school are similar, from what I've read, between Canada and the U.S.

I'm most likely going to start an official blog on the Faculty's website
about my experiences as a first-year law student, which, although it won't
have much to do with blindness, you may find particularly interesting to
read along with other people who blog about their experiences. It's not set
up yet, but if you're interested I'll let you know when it goes live.

In the mean time, you might find it helpful to research law schools and
their admissions processes. You'll find a wealth of information on the
internet. I made the mistake of being interested in only one school, UBC.
I'm fairly sure that most people apply to at least two, because of how
competitive the admissions can be and the likelihood of not getting into one
place. You might also want to consider factors that are important to you in
the school you ultimately choose to attend. I am fairly tight on money, so
tuition was a big concern for me, though for some reason I didn't discover
I'm at one of the cheapest places until after being admitted. I also didn't
want to have to move away from family and friends. But research areas and
course selections are also rather important. From what I hear, U.S. law
schools have a huge aspect of rank to them, so that Harvard is supposed to
be highly sought after, despite its tuition. But apart from all this, some
law schools are much harder to get into than others and some have very
different admissions processes, which may also be a consideration.

The only challenge I've had so far is the LSAT, which all applicants to law
schools approved by the American Bar Association and the similar bar
associations in some other countries must write in order to be ranked on
their excellence in certain abilities deemed essential for law students,
such as critical thinking. There are different ways of tackling that test,
mainly about conquering the accomodations restrictions and the problematic
accessibility of most preparation materials. The one that I pursued might be
a bit belittling to some blind people. My university has a special
discressionary category for applicants with certain challenges, and so I
applied in this category and told them specifically about my many challenges
with this test and how there were other things about me that were far more
indicative, I felt, of how I could be in their program. I would, however,
suggest that you give the test a try. If you can afford a tutor, for
instance, you might find that doing really well would help you in the
longrun. I know I would have felt better about getting in in the regular
category with a competitive LSAT score and what not.

As to accomodations. I suspect it will be similar to whatever you do now,
provided you stay at the same university, or similar otherwise. UBC, where I
also did an undergraduate degree, has a pretty good system. They have a
resource centre where you hand in your textbooks and they give you e-text or
audio, depending on what you want. I've told them I don't want any PDF files
and that I need Microsoft Word files, and they've been doing that for me.
They also have accomodations processes for exams, where they schedule you to
write at the same time as your class in a room in their offices with a
computer. I get a laptop with JAWS and a refreshable braille display. (I
conveniently got them to agree to putting a braille display into my
accomodations before they realised they needed to buy one.) The Faculty of
Law are also quite accomodating. I asked them for my professors' contact
information because I wanted to find the textbooks to hand in to be
transcribed before needing them in September, but they said that normally
they don't have the schedules ready till the very first day of classes. This
wasn't going to work for me, as you might imagine, so I calmly explained why
it was important and they got my schedule organised a few weeks ago.

That's about it. I know there are internet resources to be used, but I don't
know much about them. I also know there are domestic and international law
journals, most of which have funny abbreviated names like D.L.R. and S.C.R.,
which contain case law. I have no idea of how judges, lawyers and law
students can possibly go through what seems like millions upon millions of
large volumes in print. It might just be my ignorance.

If you do want to, I can certainly talk with you on Skype or something
similar, as long as I can get it set up properly. Let me know if I can help
any further.

All very best,
Graham

-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Kolby
Sent: Tuesday, 10 August 2010 9:44 PM
To: blindlaw at nfbnet.org
Subject: [blindlaw] Law School Experiences

Hello Everyone,
I am a totally blind college student, and I am pursuing my undergraduate
degree in Communication Studies. I am considering attending law school after
I graduate in two years' time. I would like to know about all of your law
school experiences if you would not mind sharing them. What law school did
you attend? What accommodations did you request? What accommodations were
you provided with? What challenges did you encounter, and how did you
resolve said challenges? How available and/or accessible are law school
materials? Would any of you be willing to talk with me via telephone or
skype? Are there resources available on the internet that I could begin
exploring?
Thank you in advance for any feedback on my questions, kolby

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