[blindlaw] Making the Judicial System More Accessible

[Shannon]

Hi Rahul,

Unfortunately, the last time which was several years ago, I spoke to the
clerk's office at the 5th Circuit, I was told that the ADA did not apply to
the Judiciary.  I hope that has changed.  Perhaps others on the list serve
can enlighten me.

Sincerely,

Shannon Brady Geihsler

Law Office of Shannon Brady Geihsler, PLLC
1001 Main St., Suite 803
Lubbock, Texas 79401
Office:  (806) 763-3999
Mobile:  (806) 781-9296
Fax:  (806) 749-3752
E-Mail:  sbg at sbgaal.com
This email may contain material that is confidential, privileged and/or
attorney work product for the sole use of the intended recipient. Any
review, reliance or distribution by others or forwarding without express
permission is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient,
please contact the sender and delete all copies.

-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Rahul Bajaj
via blindlaw
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 6:46 AM
To: blindlaw at nfbnet.org
Cc: Rahul Bajaj
Subject: [blindlaw] Making the Judicial System More Accessible

Hi All,

I hope this message finds you well. I am a fourth year law student from
India. I am currently working on an initiative with other disabled lawyers
aimed at putting together a list of suggestions for the consideration of the
Chief Justice of India and other key figures in the government and policy
making bodies to make courts more accessible for disabled lawyers and to
make litigation a viable career choice for a disabled lawyer. To this end, I
would be extremely grateful if you would be so kind as to apprise me of the
best practices that are followed in the United States and other countries
with respect to the following areas for promoting universal access and
providing reasonable accommodation:
1. Accessibility of the filing system using which different documents such
as plaints, written statements, rejoinders and affidavits can be filed
during the course of a lawsuit. More specifically, what special steps have
these platforms taken for promoting universal access?
2. Making the filing process hassle-free for disabled lawyers.
Disabled lawyers face a lot of challenges during the filing stage of
documents because it is difficult for them maintain the level of specificity
and exactitude that the court registries demand for getting documents
effectively filed. In addition, there are no mechanisms for helping disabled
lawyers confront these hyper-technical objections raised by court registries
during the filing process. Most of the challenges pertain to very
unimportant elements of formatting and things such as the maintenance of
right margins, providing proper space while writing application number,
deletion of underlining and highlighting, etc.
3. Full accessibility of court websites. This would include things such as
removal of captchas, making combo boxes fully accessible, rendering pages in
unicode in order to prevent material in vernacular languages from
interfering with the content of the website, etc. What strategies have you
adopted for confronting these challenges in the U.S.?
4. Making the physical infrastructure of courts accessible. This would
include things such as installing audio labels outside courtrooms for
lawyers to ascertain the number of the concerned courtroom, making display
boards more accessible, etc. What other best practices can you suggest in
this regard?
Please feel free to reach me off-list if you'd like to discuss this further
or bring any other pain points to my notice. Your suggestions would be
incredibly valuable and will go a long way in helping us acquire a fuller
picture of the concrete solutions that we must propose.

Best,
Rahul

_______________________________________________
blindlaw mailing list
blindlaw at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindlaw_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
blindlaw:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindlaw_nfbnet.org/sbg%40sbgaal.com