[blindlaw] Seeking Sighted Assistance for Reading Documents

[Angie Matney]

My firm has also re-typed handwritten documents on occasion. I forgot to add that they have done this, as well as created editable Word versions of documents, for other attorneys in the firm who need to be able to revise something that we receivd as a PDF or in another format. Again, I don't think that the way I use my secretary is all that unusual at the end of the day. I also sometimes ask her to add appointments to my callendar or to add contacts for me in Outlook, but my sighted colleagues ask their assistants to do this too. (I sometimes do these things, but sometimes it is more efficient to ask her to do it.) 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 5, 2017, at 2:22 PM, Singh, Nandini via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> I work at a large firm and still use human readers, who are usually one of my two secretaries (two secretaries serve about 10-12 attorneys). Use of a human reader is a matter of efficiency for me, the firm, and the client. My secretaries most often read small administrative documents that are not worth OCR-ing, handwritten documents, some date and signature lines, and any sort of online form that has graphical elements.
> 
> Much like Angie, I also task my secretaries and our document support services personnel to check my formatting and, when necessary, to apply the firm styles for formal documents. I do feel like I have a strong command of the JAWS keystrokes to perform formatting steps independently, but I appreciate having a visual once-over to correct anything I might have missed or to improve general spacing and alignment aesthetics that would not always strike me.
> 
> Our document support services people can also retype handwritten documents into Word documents. I had to do this for a pro bono case where the other side was a pro se plaintiff.
> 
> The other place where I use readers relates to accessing our Ediscovery platform. This is inaccessible using JAWS, so I often locate a paralegal or a litigation support services personnel (usually assigned to the matter) to run document searches that I supply them. Once I understand the number of hits of each search, communicated through email, I ask the paralegal or LSS tech to print the documents as PDFs and save them to my working folder.
> 
> I have not worked at my firm long, but I know the attorneys here have a range of working styles and habits. Some of the more old school types even request a secretary to dial the number at the start of conference calls! I have not perceived that my requests of secretaries, paralegals, and other support staff are out of the ordinary. All that being said, my firm has a ton of resources, and I am grateful that I can make use of all of them. Hope this helps.
> 
> Regards,
> Nikki
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindLaw [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Rahul Bajaj via BlindLaw
> Sent: Saturday, August 5, 2017 7:28 AM
> To: blindlaw at nfbnet.org
> Cc: Rahul Bajaj
> Subject: [blindlaw] Seeking Sighted Assistance for Reading Documents
> 
> 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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