[blindlaw] Writing the bar exam

Wed Sep 19 13:50:05 UTC 2018

Ben:

Navigate to the text you wish to make into a heading, hit the home key, select the line with control shift down arrow or select by word using control shift right arrow. Once you have selected the text you wish to convert into a heading, Hit alt control 1 to make it a level 1 heading, alt control 2 to make it a second-level heading, etc. Once you have identified all of your headings in this manner, you can hit insert F6 to bring up a list of headings and the text identifying these headings. Arrow to the heading you want and press enter to navigate to it. This makes document navigation really simple. Perhaps other list members know of even easier methods for accomplishing this, but I have found this a timesaver in the long run despite significant work on the front end.

Ms. Tai Tomasi, J.D.
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Staff Attorney

400 East Court Ave., Ste. 300
Des Moines, Iowa 50309
Tel: 515-278-2502; Toll Free: 1-800-779-2502
FAX: 515-278-0539; Relay 711
E-mail: ttomasi at driowa.org
www.driowa.org

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-----Original Message-----
From: BlindLaw <blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Ben Fulton via BlindLaw
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2018 8:25 AM
To: blindlaw at nfbnet.org
Cc: Ben Fulton <bluezinfandel at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Writing the bar exam

Hi Tai and Graham,

Those are good suggestions. I have already converted it to word, and am cleaning up the formatting as I go, so I'm not sure if asking for another word document at this time would help.

As I read each chapter I cut it into a separate file. This way I have a file for each chapter, instead of one gigantic 1,000 page file.

Someone I know does computer programming and I have approached him about designing html links.

I can try to approach the Law School, but I have found a lot of their help to be lacking, especially in matters outside the actual school itself. I could go on about the improperly formatted resumes they gave me to apply to jobs with, and how it took a friend of mine pointing out how bad they looked visually before I realized there was a problem, and this was after I made it explicit that I needed their help making the information visually presentable.

I reached out to a couple of blind lawyers in Ontario. The two I was able to talk with wrote the bar 30+ years ago, before computers. It would be great talking with someone who wrote the bar in the last 10 years.

I don't know how to add heading styles in a word document or navigate using that. If I could learn a little more about that, it would probably help.

I also don't have a lot of experience using the word find function in a document. I know how to hit control F to search for a specific word, but are there other functions that could help?

Graham, I'll message you off list. Any help you could provide would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Ben Fulton 

_______

From: Graham Hardy <GHardy at harrisbrun.com>
To: 'Blind Law Mailing List' <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Writing the bar exam
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Hi Ben,

I wrote the bar in British Columbia and had a similar experience (though a much smaller number of questions). Two things were helpful. First, when I approached the Law Society, they gladly provided me their source files in Microsoft Word format. These were, of course, formatted for printing and I had to clean up their formatting quite a bit. I also applied heading styles so that I could jump around using JAWS quick navigation commands. I knew that many students used indices but I didn't bother trying to rely on those, as I knew that having a page number would only point to a rather large section of a document, given the small font, and it would have taken longer to search things out. In addition to headings, which helped me navigate quickly to places I was very familiar with, I used the text search commands to look for words in areas which I hadn't indexed. Above all, tempting as it may be to use the open book as a crutch, it cannot be emphasised too much that having an open book sho  uld be a memory aid and can slow anyone down, sighted or blind, who has to look things up for every question. You should try as much as humanly possible to be familiar with the material.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Graham Hardy | Lawyer? 604-608-2043?|?ghardy at harrisbrun.com?

HARRIS & BRUN LAW CORPORATION?- Barristers & Solicitors
500 - 555 West Georgia ?Vancouver ?BC ?V6B 1Z6
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From: Tai Tomasi <ttomasi at driowa.org>
To: Blind Law Mailing List <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Writing the bar exam
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Graham Hardy is a member of this list and took the bar in British Columbia. Hopefully, he will chime in. I'm not sure if the exams are similar in each of these provinces. 

Ben, could you pay someone to put headings into the word document or convert it into an HTML document with links? Can you contact other blind attorneys who have taken the bar in Ontario to see how they approached this issue? Are you still affiliated with the university where you attended law school and would they be willing to assist in making the document accessible?   

Ms. Tai Tomasi, J.D.
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Staff Attorney

400 East Court Ave., Ste. 300
Des Moines, Iowa 50309
Tel: 515-278-2502; Toll Free: 1-800-779-2502
FAX: 515-278-0539; Relay 711
E-mail: ttomasi at driowa.org
www.driowa.org

Our Mission:? To defend and promote the human and legal rights of Iowans with disabilities

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE

This e-mail and any attachments contain information from the law firm of Disability Rights Iowa and are intended solely for the use of the named recipient(s). This e-mail may contain privileged attorney-client communications or work product. Any dissemination by anyone other than an intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not a named recipient, you are prohibited from any further viewing of the e-mail or any attachments or from making any use of the e-mail or attachments. If you have received this e-mail in error, notify the sender immediately and delete the e-mail, any attachments, and all copies from any drives or storage media and destroy any printouts.

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindLaw <blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Ben Fulton via BlindLaw
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2018 8:38 AM
To: blindlaw at nfbnet.org
Cc: Ben Fulton <bluezinfandel at hotmail.com>
Subject: [blindlaw] Writing the bar exam

Hi all,

I am currently studying for the Ontario bar. It is a two day 480 question exam that covers about 2,000 pages of material.

The exam is open book, and the scores are curved. I'm having a hard time dealing with the index.

Sighted students talk a lot about having tabs, and indexes that they can use to quickly look up the information they need. Time is a large component of the exam, and even though I will have twice as much time, making this a four day exam, I am still concerned about the time to look things up quickly.

For starters, the pdf file they sent was difficult to use, so I converted it to a word file, but this expanded the number of pages. So any index that other people have for this already will not work, because the page numbers won't line up.

Ideally, I would most likely want an html type of document with embedded links, then I could use the jaws find for specific words, and click on links within an index to quickly go to where I need to.

However, I have no idea how to format that.

If anyone has anysuggestions for writing the bar I would appreciate it.

Sincerely,
Ben

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