[blindLaw] Gov. Lawyering while visually impaired

Fri May 5 01:09:35 UTC 2023

Hi Michael,
You might want to join the Blind-gov listserve, as we are all government employees and prospective employees on that list.

I currently work for a Federal agency, am an attorney, and have traveled extensively for this and previous Federal jobs.  I use a human reader sometimes but not always for travel, but I definitely do when I have to travel to far-flung places where the only way to get there is to rent a car and drive.  My agency has contractors who serve this purpose, and I happen to manage that program as well.  We have a pool of about 20 Workplace Task Assistants (WTA) who serve in various functions including as readers, drivers, note-takers, people who push individuals in wheelchairs, people who lift, grip, grasp, carry, mouse, keyboard for those who cannot, etc.  It's a shared resource for some employees and a 1-to-1 for others, depending on the need.

We also have a Federal contract with Aira and use them for visual interpreting when another option is not available, e.g. airport travel, outside of business hours, in an exogency.

Happy to chat if you'd like to do so, but you might want to talk to some folks on the other list / other division I mentioned.

Thanks,
Ronza

Ronza Othman, President
National Federation of the Blind of Maryland
443-426-4110
Pronouns: she, her, hers

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindLaw <blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Caleb E. Smith via BlindLaw
Sent: Wednesday, May 3, 2023 5:36 PM
To: Blind Law Mailing List <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Caleb E. Smith <ces2266 at columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: [blindLaw] Gov. Lawyering while visually impaired

Happy to talk more if it would be helpful. I have done a few years with the government although I was at a lower level than you will be up. It was certainly not trying to do travel in renting cars and things.

They will ultimately get you whatever technology you need. But it will take a hot minute. At least if they’re still using the system where you have to go and meet with people at the Pentagon so they can get your recommendation and then get the security checked on the program that your agency has probably not seen before and then buy it.

One thing I found frustrating and I hope that they improve is that it feels sometimes like it’s always nothing. Like you could request a full-time reader which seems like a horrible waste of money for most of us. But there are some tasks that are just very difficult to do and you feel bad asking another employee or someone else’s secretary to help you read something or fill out a form. But sometimes you have to do that.  Sometimes you just need a little of this help. Not enough to need an entire full-time employee. I heard the department of transportation basically had a pool of employees to help with the needs of disabled employees so you could just use people for a little bit. Sounds like a good system. I hope that they do that.

On Wed, Mar 29, 2023 at 10:14 AM Michael Collins via BlindLaw < blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I recently accepted a civil litigator position with the federal 
> government. I'm visually impaired but still have usable vision. Would 
> anyone with experience litigating for the government be willing to 
> talk about the accommodations they've used or found available?
>
> I never really explored accommodations while clerking and my work 
> experience has been with non-profits and small firms that had more ad 
> hoc accommodations policies—i.e., if I encounter a problem and think 
> of a solution, I ask a partner if that solution is feasible with the 
> firm's resources. I gather the government has more available resources 
> (though not at the level of a big firm), but is more formulaic because 
> they have plenty of disabled employees rather than just me. I want to 
> know what I can reasonably expect in terms of technology/services. The 
> position requires a lot of travel, so I'm particularly curious about 
> what the government does when a lawyer simply cannot rent a car at the 
> airport to travel to the final destination.
>
> If anyone who's traveled this road before would be willing to chat 
> about the accommodations they used and the roadblocks they 
> encountered, I would be very appreciative.
>
> Thank you,
>
> - Michael
> Sent from my mobile device
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