[blindlaw] Fwd: Relativity Follow-up - JAWS Compatibility

Wed Dec 31 11:19:45 UTC 2014

Noel,

Do you mind my asking what programme you use and what its e Discovery
functionality is like? (Feel free to respond off list, if
appropriate.)

We use a document management programme in the firm for which I work
and I find it reasonably accessible. Thus far however, I have not
found an e Discovery platform accessible using JAWS which allows the
searching and categorization of large volumes of client's documents
and ultimately the production of those documents which are relevant to
the case, for exchange with the other side.

I will do my best to pursue this matter but I do wonder whether there
is an organization which could do more than I can do as an individual
- especially as many of the manufacturers of these products seem to be
US based and I am not.

At the risk of repetition, I firmly believe that e Discovery presents
major opportunities for blind/visually impaired lawyers.

Before the development of e Discovery, those documents would have been
largely paper based. Reviewing thousands of paper documents physically
was and is a massive and tedious undertaking for anyone. All the more
so, if that person is blind or visually impaired.

E Discovery works on documents which have already been scanned and
converted to text using OCR. Indeed, it works only because the OCR on
such documents is pretty accurate (since otherwise search
functionality, predictive coding etc. would not be effective).

So, we have the documents in a format which JAWS or another screen
reader could in principle read, somewhere within the programme and the
problems seem to be issues with the design of the software in
question.

That said, the response which I sent through yesterday is much more
positive than that which I received from Summation for example. I will
keep the list updated regarding any solutions I do find or indeed the
lack of a satisfactory solution.

With best wishes for 2015.

Kind regards

Ger

On 12/30/14, Nightingale, Noel <Noel.Nightingale at ed.gov> wrote:
> Jer,
>
> I use a document management program that includes a viewer function and
> three panes.  I just turned off the viewer function, and, as long as
> documents are given adequate file names, it works fine for me with JAWS.
> The panes don't pose much of a problem for me.
>
> I am glad you are pursuing this issue as we definitely need to see progress
> in the area of accessibility of case management systems for blind lawyers.
>
> Noel
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindlaw [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Gerard
> Sadlier via blindlaw
> Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2014 12:50 PM
> To: blindlaw
> Cc: soviluk
> Subject: [blindlaw] Fwd: Relativity Follow-up - JAWS Compatibility
>
> Dear all,
>
> As I noted previously on the list I am anxious to find an e Discovery
> platform (and preferably platforms) which are accessible using JAWS or
> another screen reader.
>
> I emailed Relativity earlier today to query its accessibility and
> received the following response. On first reading, this seems
> encouraging because:
> 1. They have conducted some testing using JAWS and seem (on this
> showing at least) to be willing to make improvements.
> 2. The difficulties identified do not sound too problematic.
>
> I would be grateful for any comments which others may have about this
> programme or indeed other e Discovery programmes.
> wever, I am convinced that e Discovery represents a major opportunity
> for visually impaired lawyers and that the accessibility of such
> platforms ought to be a priority both for visually impaired lawyers as
> individuals and indeed for organizations of visually impaired lawyers.
>
> Comments welcome.
>
> Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a
> happy 2015.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Ger
>
> Apologies for the repeated postings on this point. Ho
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Jason Jaroch <jjaroch at kcura.com>
> Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 18:51:51 +0000
> Subject: Relativity Follow-up - JAWS Compatibility
> To: "gerard.sadlier at gmail.com" <gerard.sadlier at gmail.com>
>
> Hi Gerard,
>
> Thanks for reaching out and inquiring about the use of JAWS with
> Relativity.
>
> We've conducted some testing in this area, and continue to make
> improvements, but there are a handful of issues that users may
> encounter when using JAWS with Relativity. Please see below.
>
>
> 1)      Viewer
>
> a.       Actual Viewer - May not be accessible, no controls recognized
>
> b.      Related Items Pane - May not be accessible
>
> 2)      No Skip Navigation
>
> 3)      Browser pane in the document list - Not fully accessible.
>
> I've reached out to our Product Management team to gather additional
> insight on the improvements we've included in our most recent release
> (Relativity 9.0).
>
> As soon as I hear back from the team, I'll be sure to follow-up with
> more information.
>
> In the meantime, please let me know if any other questions arise.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jason Jaroch | kCura
> 231 South LaSalle Street
> 8th Floor
> Chicago, IL 60604
> office: (312) 870-5579
> mobile: (312) 771-8348
> fax: (312) 263-4351
> jjaroch at kcura.com<mailto:jjaroch at kcura.com>
> www.kcura.com<http://www.kcura.com/>
> ref:_00D5072uY._50050Z0NSQ:ref
>
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