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Challenges encountered as a blind lawyer
( 1 ) From the start of college , the toughest thing was keeping up . In law school , case books , as law school textbooks are known , constantly change as statutes , case law , administrative rules and regulations change . Even if a case book had been recorded ( a rare thing when I went to law school ), it almost certainly would not be the edition used in a class I would be taking . Professors naturally insisted on using the most up to date case books and also passed out many reprints of recently published case opinions , new or recently revised statutes , rules , and regulations , along with new articles discussing these materials . I relied on my mother and other readers to read to me in person or to record the materials I had to read for college , law school , and the first fifteen years of law practice , but there was no way I could get a class assignment and get it recorded or read to me in time to be ready every day for class .
Reading quantities and deadlines sometimes were a challenge in practicing law , too . My reading speed was limited to the pace of the given reader , and if I wanted to increase the speed of recorded material , I had to turn up the speed of the tape recorder and put up with the much higher pitch of the sound ; it was a bit like listening to Donald Duck . I borrowed $ 25,000 , computerized in 1988 and got the benefit of digital reading from screen reader software which read everything that came to the computer screen and from scanners that allowed me to put a print document on the scanner lens , push a button , and have the print converted to speech . Other controls in these programs and on these machines let me increase speed and volume as I chose ( default reading speed was 400-425 words per minute ), without increasing pitch . I could have my type strokes echoed so that I always knew what I had just typed and where I was in a document , I could word process , convert documents to Braille , Braille them out with a Braille printer , and I was able to get online like anyone else ( having learned to type at age eight was valuable ). This also meant I could cut back on hiring readers .
( 2 ) A second challenge was being comfortable with an ever-expanding world of photography and other technologies . I had to be sure that people on whom I relied to describe things to me were competent to the level I could trust . I could not risk being under prepared and / or uncomfortable in working with exhibits that were or might be part of a court hearing or trial . That meant being sure to have someone I trusted available to provide sighted assistance in situations where I thought it might be needed . Like life in general , anticipation was the key to addressing these concerns in law practice . Similarly , I could not afford to have clients be wary of my ability to work with items that were or might become an important part of their proceedings . An attorney dealing with any critical element of a presentation--photographs , physical equipment , workings of a process , the way in which a structure is arranged - must learn about that element to the maximum level of understanding , and sometimes lack of sight made learning a little slower going than if I had been sighted .
( 3 ) A third challenge was relating to people when I could not see them - clients , jurors , witnesses , opposition attorneys , judges , court personnel . But everyone has his or her own way of assessing people , and