Anyone familiar with the unreliable and time-consuming nature of electronic book scanning devices may wince at this person’s experience:

Staff at some law faculties try harder to accommodate:

Chapter 6 mentions a number of ways in which professors can facilitate course participation by students with disabilities, by summarizing course materials more clearly, by distributing timely copies of overhead slides that show highlights of the course, and so on. Part 6.5 mentioned resources through which students and instructors can learn a great deal about optional ways of accessing course materials. Most of these methods will already be familiar to the staff of the Special Needs Office/Disability Services Office on the university campus where a law school is situated. In addition to the sources pointed to in part 6.5, students may want to refer to other sources listed in the Bibliography, under the heading "Adaptive Technology". Practical examples of how lawyers with diverse disabilities use adaptive technology in their daily work are described in three articles published in the September 4, 1998 edition of The Lawyers Weekly, which are listed under "Printed Resources" in the Bibliography.

Assuring access to assigned readings in formats that are appropriate for each student with a print-related disability requires the cooperation of instructors and often the assistance of staff in libraries and at the law school’s bookstore or materials distribution centre. To the extent possible, arrangements to secure proper access to assigned course materials should be made well in advance of the beginning of classes. This ideal situation is not easy to achieve, however.

Law school is based heavily on printed information, which puts many students with disabilities at a distinct disadvantage, including blind students, those with other visual impairments, deaf students, those who are hard of hearing and students with learning disabilities. Textbooks, case books (which are mainly compilations of excerpts from reported cases) and other required course materials may not be available in alternate formats (such as Braille, large print, or audiotape). Adequate time is thus needed to convert the materials. Survey participants indicated that where materials are provided in accessible format, they are often late, which puts the student behind or at a loss for class discussions or written assignments. Access to assigned materials held on reserve in the law library, with the hope of converting these to accessible formats, was also identified as a perennial problem.

Failure to have access to required reading materials in alternate format at the beginning of a term was identified by survey participants as a cause of "frustration and the need to fight for assistance". While the law school may have a good policy demanding provision of such materials, the readings are of little benefit when they are not made available to the student when the rest of the class has them. In such cases, the purpose of the accommodation policy is defeated. Focus Group participants in every city said that law professors are supposed to submit class materials months in advance of a course (usually three months), but many do not comply. As one student observed: "Teachers were required to tell the campus bookstore by the end of June what books they would need for the autumn term. The problem was that this policy was not strictly enforced."

One blind student who participated in a Focus Group said he had completely underestimated the amount of time necessary to scan course materials electronically. Scanning can take a horrendous number of hours. On the other hand, to obtain an electronic version of the 10 pages (for example) of a case that a professor has excerpted into a casebook, the student may need to find an electronic version of the entire case.

The following recollections and recommendations by law students and lawyers with disabilities were gathered from surveys, interviews and focus group discussions across Canada in 1999-2000.

"Scanning is not always a good option. If the photocopier is slightly dirty that can have an adverse impact on scanning."

"I had lots of documents scanned, especially case books, but the results were horrible."

"Scanning is impossible for casebooks."

"Students with print disabilities may have to pay twice for large law books, once to get the original plain version and once to get the pages enlarged somewhere else."

"Large print is not necessarily good because you lose some of the perspective of what is on the page. My preference would be to have more time to read the whole thing. To take that approach requires a lot more energy than most of our classmates have to expend. There is simply no avoiding the hard work."

"Remember that you might have to spend hundreds of dollars on photocopies if you don’t get the right kind of help from the law school."

"In one way it was easier for me because three of us that year had visual impairments. We let the administration know who we were and what we needed. We were able to get large print handouts of materials distributed during the orientation week."

"An individual with a disability may have to be assertive by talking to professors ahead of time, finding out what materials they plan to use and asking them to produce these materials earlier than usual."

"A student may need to take the step of asking the professor which 20 pages of the course material the student most needs to understand for the next class." [This thought is intentionally repeated from Chapter 6.]

We were told that one law school has all its books available electronically on an internal system, but this fine idea could not be verified as this guidebook went to press.

"The whole class benefitted from the fact that we were able to get course materials on diskette and able to print them out more clearly. It ended up being better for everyone."

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