[blindlaw] Law Schools Power over Readers or assistants for study and outside of classroom assignments if the individual is not paid by the school

Mon Nov 14 14:58:48 UTC 2016

Aimee,
Though I cannot say for sure, I think the people who have responded largely
understand your question. The discussion probably is going in a direction a
bit different than you expected with Laura's discussion of formatting. This
is a related discussion I think though. For quite some time, I have thought
calling this person the state will fund for you a reader does not actually
address the modern use case. I think that actual reading is much less needed
than it was 30 years ago. At that time, there were case books for the
classes and legal research came through the paper reporters and so forth.
Some of the casebooks would have been recorded on cassette, but the
reporters, citators and so forth were not. None of these were in Braille for
those who could use that. Today, I think it is rare that a person actually
uses a reader that way. There may be some old files that are legacy
materials and in practice, there are some hand written materials. The
majority though seems to be proofing documents and that is probably why the
thread has morphed more to that direction. It seems to me that you need to
articulate to those making the reasonable accommodation decision why you are
not getting an advantage by having the reader.

I graduated law school in the middle 90's. For most of my time in school, I
had LexisNexis, Westlaw  and a scanner with OCR for paper materials. That
latter was quite new though for personal use. Some professors wanted open
book final exams. When given a choice or if there was a vote on the open
book exam, I voted no! In law though, open books does not really give the
test taker the answers; it gives the materials with which she will conducted
her answers/arguments. Problem from my point of view was that a case book
might take 15 4-track tapes and I could see no good way to find answers in
that environment. I further assumed that because one had access to her book,
the professor probably expected quotes for holdings and the like. I might
have used a reader and directed her to the answers, which may have been
quicker, but probably would have required a bit of practice. At any rate,
with digital media, I think my arguments against open book exams lose their
bite. It seems to me, though I do not use on line legal sources at all these
days, that much of what is on the screen can be efficiently located using
JAWS and so forth. If that is true, it seems that developing facility with
the tools is where you really need to focus. I started law school with a
typewriter, a nice electric but..., a cassette recorder, a slate and
stylist, and a Perkins brailler.  By the end of the year, I have a desktop
computer, braille embosser, scanner with document feeder and OCR software
and a braille note taker. I found myself learning all of these while trying
to keep up with school and I sure wish to received or bought all this stuff
first so I would have come to law school with the skills already in place. I
say all of this because as I read what you write, the argument sounds like,
"I need this person, paid for by the state, to visually find things on the
screen for which I have searched. I need this because I have been out of
school for quite a while and lack the facility with JAWS that would allow me
not to need this person. Once I gain more experience here in law school, it
may become the case that I need this person less or not at all." If I were
the decision maker, I would conclude that you need to gain the facility you
lack right now and that a "reader" is not necessary. Maybe I am missing
something and I absolutely believe in our right as blind people to receive
the accommodations we need to address these activities like law school and
even legal practice beyond that.
Best
Jim McCarthy

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindLaw [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Aimee
Harwood via BlindLaw
Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2016 3:34 PM
To: Blind Law Mailing List
Cc: Aimee Harwood
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Law Schools Power over Readers or assistants for
study and outside of classroom assignments if the individual is not paid by
the school

Hello fellow listers,

I need to clarify my position on the reader in research. I only intend to
use the reader for locating things on the screen or in the document visually
I will do all of the research myself. I will not ask them to do any research
or make sure that I am using correct citation as to the rules. The reader
will be solely for visual aspects of the work. I only want to use the reader
as any other blindness related tool.  

I have been out of school for 13 years and have not used JAWS in six of
those years. Training is sparse here. I know enough to manage. I would
imagine that once I am more proficient with jaws and things of the like, I
will use a reader less as school goes on. I am working on my braille
proficiency and speed as well. At this point it is a much better use of my
time until I become faster on my own.  

I am not trying to have anyone do anything for me. That's not my position. I
am very capable and high functioning once I learn how to do the things that
I need to do. I understand that many of you may not really know me. And it
would be easy to assume that I want someone to do the work for me. I don't.
I hope you will consider looking at my requests in a different mindset. Miss
Chang, I have not found your email regarding my post yet. I do hope you
shared it with the group so that I may read it and find some wisdom within
it. I would hope it was not sent to everyone except me.

In closing, I hope I have cleared things up a bit so that we can get
conversations addressing the issues at hand regarding the school viewing
most requests as an extra advantage over other students rather than leveling
the playing field as well as increasing my understanding of what my rights
actually are. I really do appreciate and value the input of the list
especially because the majority of you guys have been out there and know
more about the inner workings then those of us in law school.  You have the
potential to be very helpful and insightful if you choose to.

Aimee

Sent from my iPhone

> On Nov 12, 2016, at 1:56 PM, Aimee Harwood <awildheir at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Rod,
> 
> Thank you for your response. The individual over accommodations in my
school is the director of student affairs. He influences everyone at the
school up to the dean. I do not have a person at the school that I can feel
comfortable going to regarding issues. I basically have to be my own
attorney and spent hours researching things on Westlaw and Lexus to try and
support my position. That's why I am reaching out to the group to find out
how it is handled in practice and what my rights really are and how much
power the law school has over certain things. I am the first student with
significant vision loss as far as I know. I also have general anxiety
disorder and ADHD. The individual administering accommodations at the school
is primarily a professor. As we know, professors are the hardest to get to
understand accommodations. They think most everything gives some sort of
advantage instead of actually leveling the playing field in response to the
disability or in my case disabilities. I greatly appreciate your input and
hope that you have a wonderful day.
> 
> Aimee
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On Nov 12, 2016, at 4:30 AM, Rod Alcidonis, Esquire via BlindLaw
<blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Aimee:
>> 
>> The short answer is no. But if you are so concerned about it, I would
voice those concerns to your Dean of Students or Academic affair so that
they are fully aware of those concerns. This is what accommodation is all
about. IN the practice of law, I typically get my asssistants to sign a
confidentiality document to protect myself/client.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Rod Alcidonis, Esq.
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message----- From: Aimee Harwood via BlindLaw
>> Sent: Friday, November 11, 2016 9:56 PM
>> To: Michal Nowicki via BlindLaw
>> Cc: Aimee Harwood
>> Subject: [blindlaw] Law Schools Power over Readers or assistants for
study and outside of classroom assignments if the individual is not paid by
the school
>> 
>> Greetings everyone,
>> 
>> I am getting a reader who is paid by the state.  This reader will perform
reading of any material for school purposes that I need them to read.  They
will also proof any assignments before I hand them in.  I will use them
during research to help locate something on the screen that is hard to
locate it is too time consuming to navigate to just to get that one bit of
info. Basically the individual will assist with anything vision related.
>> 
>> My school assigns a judicial opinion the first semester of the 1L year.
All graded assignments have restrictions on students getting outside
assistance. We are not allowed to let anyone see our work or assist us in
any way regarding the assignment including research. If a student violates
any of the restrictions, they violate the honor code.
>> 
>> Now that you have the basic situation, can the school penalize me for
using a reader to assist me in any visual aspect of the assignment? If I use
the reader to verify the formatting or point out any issues they see that I
may have missed because I didn't see it?  What about penalizing me for using
the reader to assist in research to find what I ask them to find  or
highlight what I ask them to highlight? Basically, can they penalize me for
the reader performing non-essential tasks on graded assignments?  How much
control does the school have over the person paid by the state to assist
with outside of class activities as long as I am the one doing the legal
work?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Aimee
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
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