Rebooting Legal Education For EVERYONE: An Examination of Adaptive, Assistive and Accessible Technologies for Legal Research and Practice

Legal education has increasingly become technology dependent.  As more and more law schools and legal vendors work to keep up with the latest trends in technology…..many users will not have the ability to keep up with their own law schools and law firms when those institutions are moving ahead with QR codes, smart phone apps and complicated search engine interfaces.  The latest case law and other legal standards, including those proposed by the web design community and other accessibility issues, from the Kindle controversy to the latest edition of Dragon voice recognition software, will be discussed.

The presenters will examine the latest movement in accessibility standards, adaptive and assistive technologies commonly used in law schools and law firms by permanently and temporarily disabled users.  The focus will include interviews with visible and invisible disabilities, as well as the technology currently used by the presenter's own students, the law school faculty, law librarians and other staff.  The presenters will also evaluate the inherent difficulties of using assistive and adaptive legal technology while in the law firm environment.