[blindLaw] Law School Accommodations

[Julie McGinnity]

Good evening,

The two accommodations I was not prepared to fight for in law school
were a human reader and fully accessible copies of my books.

I am about half-way through with law school now, and I am finding my
experience has improved so much with those two accommodations. I use a
human reader to help me when systems aren't accessible, Jaws doesn't
catch formatting or other errors, and to explain some visual concepts
to me. I know; you're thinking, you're crazy, it's law school. But
seriously, you are going to face the hardest formatting rules and the
harshest grading of your life. Ever heard of curved versus straight
appostrophes? Yeah, neither did I.

As for the books, most law schools like to get publisher copies of
books, and those are not always as accessible as they should be. If
you have patience, you can format them the way you want, but my books
came in files too large for my computer to open without crashing. And
most of them did not have page numbers. I had a professor whose TA had
to specifically contact me after every class my first semester to tell
me what cases to read because I couldn't get to the pages I needed by
number. I also really struggled following along in class when
professors pointed out examples. Therefore, I fought for page numbers,
and I am grateful I did.

So, think about the way you want your books formatted, if you want the
accessibility office to format them for you, etc.

I agree that it is important to know how exams are handled at your
school. Our university still lets us do exams online, and everyone
downloads them in a Word document and goes from there. But it is my
understanding that no exam software is accessible with assistive
technology.

Good luck!

Julie


On 6/3/22, Rod Alcidonis via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> You should ask for what you believe you will need to succeed, providing that
> your request is reasonable. When it comes to accommodations, you should
> utilize others' experience as information and education but not necessarily
> a list of things that you should ask without first assessing whether the
> request will meet your needs. You have made it to law school, so you have a
> good idea of what has worked for you thus far. Too much deviation from that
> may be counterproductive, in my view.
>
> Be ready to offer a reason or rationale to justify your requests. Be
> proactive. Be personable.
>
> It'll be different for everyone. When I attended law school, I was assigned
> a private study room in the law library for my entire time there. I had all
> my AT equipment configured the way I wanted to. It was one of the best
> accommodations I received.
>
>
> Rod,
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindLaw <blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Robert Munro via
> BlindLaw
> Sent: Friday, June 3, 2022 1:41 PM
> To: Blind Law Mailing List <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Robert Munro <r.g.munro at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [blindLaw] Law School Accommodations
>
> Ask about their exams. Do they use specialized software, and does it work
> with your accessibility needs?
>
> My school allowed me to have an electronic copy of the exam on a usb drive;
> then I answered the questions in a word processer and saved it to the usb
> drive. That was all coordinated by an assistant dean.
>
> You want to be as comfortable as possible when taking exams, so practice
> using whatever system you will be using before exam day. You don't want the
> frustrations of learning a new set up while your under exam stress.
>
> If exams are your only grade, you want to give yourself every advantage.
> Good luck.
>
>
>
> Onward!
>
> Rob
>
>> On Jun 3, 2022, at 12:11, Matthew Smith via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>> I will be attending law school in the fall, is there any Accommodations
>> that I should know or ask for that would be helpful for my law school
>> experience? Also, is there anyone here that attends a historically black
>> law school? Your experience would be great to hear from!
>>
>> Matthew J. Smith
>> _______________________________________________
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-- 
Julie A. McGinnity
MM Vocal Performance, 2015; American University Washington College of
Law, JD Candidate 2023