[blindLaw] Accessible practice management apps

[Elizabeth Rene]

Hi folks,
Hope you’re all doing well and enjoying work from home.
during this liminal period in my practice, I’m evaluating just about everything to see how I want to proceed in the future. Since things are changing so much, I want to take an active part in the change.
I use my iPad, my iPhone, and sometimes a braille display (QBraille XL 40) to do my work, with a SmartLine second Phone number on my iPhone for business calls and texts and a dedicated, encrypted email account under my business name for clients and colleagues.
I built my first website using Go Daddy Central. I don’t have a billing software program yet, hoping to rely on a virtual accountant for that.  Maybe Bench.co.
 I have a little bit of usable vision, and rely on high magnification when VoiceOver doesn’t work well in the particular instance. I don’t see color at all. Everything for me is “black, white, and gray,“ as it were.
This has been my experience since starting my solo practice:
SmartLine doesn’t work well with VoiceOver, and doesn’t let me preserve client texts outside the app. Contacts created there get blended in with my regular iPhone contacts. Not good! But for those with usable sight, SmartLine does let you know who is calling and that your call is a business scall. It lets you block unwanted numbers. And it records and transcribes voicemails into separate emails. You can’t generate conference calls on SmartLine, or use the same number for a team of coworkers. Sideline does let you do that, but I haven’t checked out it’s accessibility, since I don’t have employees, and haven’t needed to host conference calls yet, I’ve been content with SmartLine.
 My encrypted email account is fine, but it was really designed for Microsoft Outlook, not for Apple Mail.  Still works though. It has a double quarantine feature that I like.
The biggest headache has been my website. I’ve never developed it to its fullest potential, because its management tools don’t work well with VoiceOver or Safari. Go daddy‘s in-person phone support is quite good, and their technicians are interested and helpful when I say that I use screen access technology, but their platform is built for android and Microsoft desk-tops, so I need something better. Also, the GoDaddy website has been re-designed to conceal price information for all of one’s products. One has to create a shopping cart to find that info, (big frowny face!).
So what is everyone else using? 
What second line phone number app are you using?
Who has your domains?
Is WordPress accessible? Has anyone used it to build a website? Are your websites blind friendly? How have you accomplished that?
How are you tracking your time and billing? How do you generate invoices? How are you accepting credit cards, if you do that?
What software, if any, are you using to manage your IOLTA accounts?
I am especially interested to hear what solo and small firm practitioners are doing, especially if you have to run your firm on a budget. But if something is worth it’s weight in gold, I want to know about that too.
Thanks everyone, and I wish you all well.
Elizabeth

Elizabeth M René 
Attorney at Law 
WSBA #10710 
KCBA #21824
rene0373 at gmail.com