[blindlaw] New list member with a question

[Dittman, Robert]

Hello Shannon,

First, welcome to the list.

Second, I must state at the outset that this is not legal advice nor am I able to represent you in this matter.  The following is personal help given in the spirit of assisting a fellow blind person.


You say you are "involved" in a law suit.  If you are represented by counsel, perhaps they or their staff can provide the documents to you in Ms. Word format.  If you are representing yourself, the standard "Go talk to a lawyer applies."  That being said, what I do is to print the documents out then use open book or other OCR scanning software.

If I may ask, and you do not have to answer, what types of documents are you wishing to have access to? Are they government forms such as court documents, or evidence provided by one of the parties or counsel?

If they are court documents you may wish to call the court clerk to ask if you can get copies in Ms. Word format. If evidence, then that is a different matter.

Good luck, and again it never hurts to speak with an attorney if you can do so anytime you are "involved" with legal proceedings.


Robert D. Dittman
Student Attorney
St. Mary's University, Center for Legal and Social Justice (Civil Clinic)
2507 N.W. 36th Street
San Antonio, TX  78228-3918
Phone: (210) 431-5760  fax: (210) 431-5700
Email: rdittman at mail.stmarytx.edu

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-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of shannon
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2012 11:27 AM
To: blindlaw at nfbnet.org
Subject: [blindlaw] New list member with a question

Good morning all,
I am not a lawyer but have a question for the blind lawyers.
In the age of legal documents being available on the web but in most cases in inaccessible formats how do you all handle gaining access to them?
Are you responsible as individuals for gaining access to them or is there a provision that the legal documents be in an accessible format?

I am involved in a law suit that I want to get more background on and I am finding that the documents available on the Web and through governmental agencies are mostly in formats that are not accessible with a screen reader.
I want to read this information but most of it is scanned and in rather poor fonts for OCR with the readily available OCR programs.
Thanks for any information
Shannon Bartch
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