[blindlaw] Seeking Sighted Assistance for Reading Documents

[Angie Matney]

Rahul, 

I work at a firm with about 80 attorneys. This has generally been something my secretary does. as you point out, it isn't necessary if you have a clean OCR result, but that doesn't always happen. 

As for when I ask for assistance, I do it whenever it is the most efficient way to do what I need to do for the client. This is true of some other tasks as well. As an example, our document management software produces blackline comparison documents that are generally quite accessible, but even with JAWS set to a fast speed and using features like text analyzer, there are times when it is more efficient for me to ask my secretary to either go through the changes in the document with me, or tell me which sections have been modified. 

I also always have her check formatting and other aspects of my documents before sending them to colleagues or clients. I know there are ways to access this information, but I find it invaluable when she fixes things I might not have noticed, or adjusts the spacing between lines because it looks better, or does something similar. 

I believe it is incumbent upon me to produce the highest quality work product I can, so as to reflect well upon myself and on my firm. This means using my secretary differently than some other attorneys. On the flip side, I never hand her a marked-up printout full of handwritten notes asking her to make changes to a document, as a number of my colleagues do. 

I am in a small office, and my secretary works for me and one other attorney. This other attorney is probably the busiest partner in our office, so while some assistants at our firm have three attorneys, I think the firm would hesitate to give her a third attorney. This is partly because of the partner I mentioned, and possibly partly because of what they understand about how she and I work together. Having said that, she is far from the only secretary with only two attorneys. My perception is that the firm has not had cause over the last 7 years to feel that the way I use my secretary is especially problematic or even especially different from what others do. 

I realize that every work situation is different. I think I am fortunate to have the type of access to my secretary that I have at my firm. 

Sorry for this long ramble. Hope at least parts of it made sense. 

Angie



Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 5, 2017, at 7:28 AM, Rahul Bajaj via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> I hope this message finds you well. While I am able to read most
> documents independently after converting them into an accessible
> format, I have to rely on sighted assistance from time to time.
> This is obviously the case when handwritten documents are involved,
> but also when the quality of the converted documents is not so good as
> to enable me to decipher some pieces of information such as dates of
> events or the page numbers of the written submissions on which the
> annexures I need can be found.
> In this respect, I was wondering if any of you could comment on: (1)
> the principles that you adopt to decide when you want to rely on a
> sighted reader as opposed to using assistive technology; and (2) for
> those of you who work in a law firm, have you formally asked the firm
> to make someone available to you for this purpose, or does this work
> on an ad hoc basis?
> Further, is your sighted reader generally an intern, a secretary or
> someone else?
> 
> Best,
> Rahul
> 
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