[blindlaw] 1l summer internships and assistive tech

[Michael Fry]

Hi Laura,

Congratulations on starting your first year of law school.  My sense is
that a law firm with ten or more attorneys will have the resources and
patience to accommodate you more easily than a solo practitioner or a two
to three person firm.  I think it is safe to say that a majority of
attorneys self identify as liberal or progressive.  That means that a law
firm may be more willing than you think to go with your accommodation
because doing so fits with the firm's self image.  Giving you meaningful
assignments and feedback is another story, however.

An internship with a government entity (municipal, county, state, or
federal) will probably be the most accommodating.  I highly recommend you
look into an internship with a government entity for that reason.

Most students interview for an internship in the first semester of the
second year and work at that internship in the summer between the second
and third year.  So, interning in the summer of year 1 to year 2 is not
that important for locking down a good long term job.  Keep that in mind.

Some law schools offer summer classes.  These classes are a good way to
boost your GPA because they tend to be an easy A.  If grades are important
to you then consider that option.  Note, however, it costs extra and
the additional $10k or so may not be worth it.

Mike


On Fri, Oct 18, 2013 at 7:45 AM, Laura Wolk <laura.wolk at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> I am sure this has been raised before, but I am wondering if anyone
> has advice regarding 1l summer internships and assistive
> technology--namely, how to address the elephant in the room of the
> expense of the technology versus the time period during which I will
> be working at a particular place.
>
> Does anyone have advice on how to address this, or the issue of
> potential discrimination that is always inherent when dealing with the
> short term hiring of a person with a disability doing more or less
> dime-a-dozen  grunt work? I confess that i don't know much about the
> application and interviewing process--we've only just been able to
> legally speak with our career counselors--so I apologize if some of
> these questions are rather routine. I wanted to go into my first
> appointment with my counselor as prepared as possible.
>
> I own copies of all the tech I need and, in undergrad, this is what I
> would use for internships, but I have heard that people in the legal
> profession tend to be not so amenable to this approach. Are there
> particular types of summer jobs where the intern's responsibilities
> lend themselves particularly well to a totally blind assistive tech
> user other than research positions? note that I am not currently
> working with OVR because I am going to school out of state and so the
> two states are currently both fighting me on not wanting to open a
> case with me.
>
> any advice about how to address this in the internship process would
> be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Laura
>
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