[blindlaw] Accessible Legal Office Management Software

[Susan Kelly]

That has been my experience when my supervisor and I have tried to speak with the makers of JustWare - the prevailing opinion in the software creation world seems to be that if it is run on the internet (on a restricted access / password protected), it must be accessible.  Freedom Scientific has been great at helping to set things up to work with our network, another huge problem for accessibility software in our office, but short of getting permission from the file management software maker to go in and make permit edits to their program, it will not work.  They initially offered to put a software engineer at our disposal, then reneged on that as well.

I agree with Kerri - this is a HUGE problem, and I don't think it is limited to the legal field, since file management software seems to be the tech toy of the moment.  There is no reason why proper accessibility guidelines can't be followed in creating these applications, other than laziness and the pursuit of profit, as it would admittedly take more labor-time to get the programs created.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Kerri Regan [mailto:kerrireg at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2014 8:44 AM
To: Susan Kelly; Blind Law Mailing List
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Accessible Legal Office Management Software

The office where I'm interning uses Prevail. I tried it with four different screenreaders and it didn't work with any of them. Maybe you'd  have better luck with ZoomText. Has either NFB or ACB contacted the manufacturers of software like this to request accessibility improvements? When I called Prevail they didn't seem to know what I was talking about but promised to pass my request on to management.
Haven't heard back since. I'm a paralegal student with a semester to go before I'm certified and I'm starting to worry that the inaccessibility of most case management software will make finding and maintaining a position in a law office a lot harder than anticipated.
Thanks for bringing this topic up. Kerri

On 7/3/14, Susan Kelly via blindlaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Based on prior  research that I did when our office was looking at 
> getting a file management system, I am not sure that such a thing 
> exists.  In any event, do not waste time / money on JustWare, which is 
> the package our office went with a couple of years ago.  I know that 
> it is not accessible with JAWS (I also use MAGic for viewing images 
> when absolutely necessary, but the size required for me to see the 
> fields in JW make it not an option, either).  I have also heard from 
> virtually all of my fully-sighted co-workers that it is horribly slow 
> and prone to crashes and errors on nearly a daily basis.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindlaw [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of 
> Kendrick Kennedy via blindlaw
> Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2014 7:35 AM
> To: NFB Blind Law Mailing List
> Subject: [blindlaw] Accessible Legal Office Management Software
>
> Hello All,
>
> Does anyone have suggestions for a legal office management package 
> that is assessable with Zoomtext 10?
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