[nfbmi-talk] Skubick: Michigan’s First Blind Justice Preparing For Supreme Court

[Mark Eagle]

Skubick: Michigan’s First Blind Justice Preparing For Supreme Court
 By Kary FeickPublished: January 8, 2015, 7:28 pm Updated: January 8, 2015, 9:29 pm 

LANSING, MI (WLNS) – State history will be made next week when the state’s first blind justice of the state Supreme Court takes his seat on the state’s highest court bench.
Justice Richard Bernstein talked with 6 News Capitol Correspondent Tim Skubick on how he will prepare for all the cases to come before the high court.
There were two major differences between the three state Supreme Court justices who were sworn in last Thursday. Richard Bernstein is a Democrat and fellow justices Paul Viviano and Brain Zahara are Republicans. And then there’s the other major difference, they can see, Justice Bernstein cannot.
He’s been that way since birth, but needless to say it has not held him back.
For the past 15 years, son Richard became a household word thanks to his dad’s all pervasive TV commercials for the Bernstein law firm which also featured his older brother and sister along with father Sam.
Brother Mark Bernstein last summer wondered how the Bernstein name would play in his brother’s second attempt at a statewide office.
Richard ran unsuccessfully for state attorney general four years ago but this time, he was swept into office.
Now that he is on the bench and since he can’t read all the legal cases, what will he do?
The most effective way is with readers.
Instead of transferring everything into braille, Justice Bernstein will listen as his readers fill him in.
“We have 10 cases that are up for oral arguments for the January call. I have already internalized and memorized all of those cases. So for the last six or seven weeks that’s what I’ve been focusing on,” said Richard Bernstein, Michigan Supreme Court Justice.
He reports that worked for him in the family business, but it is hard work.
“As a blind person you do realize the level of work is greater, the level of hours is greater and the intensity is going to be greater but, you get through it. You always push forward. There’s a deadline and you meet it.”
When he joins the other justices, he will have a hidden agenda in addition to deciding cases. He hopes to inspire companies to hire the blind.
If modest accommodations are made you will have the most loyal, hardworking, energetic and resilient people you could possibly have.
History in the making next week in our town.