Dee Jones, Vermont Law School

Dee Jones, a 2012 prospective Vermont Law School graduate, has managed to demonstrate the ability to face and conquer multiple challenges in her lifetime and law school is no different. Jones, who has been legally blind since the age of five, has learned to adapt to her loss of sight through various means including learning Braille and using a specialized screen-reader program on her computer. When in class, Jones does not have the ability to read the whiteboard or view the PowerPoint presentations. She uses textbooks that are electronically reformatted into speech files and uses tapes of the lectures to review the information discussed during class.

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Jones acknowledges that law school does pose additional challenges for her. ''The Socratic method can be very challenging. Professors are looking for specifics out of cases. Most law students are sitting there flipping through the pages, but I don't have it at my fingertips. I just have to know the information when I go to class-the cases, the standard of review, the holding. That's very challenging.''

Jones points out that she has received a great deal of support from Vermont Law School. ''It's very complicated to put someone with this disability through law school.'' Jones cites the challenges presented by a particular civil procedure textbook with colors in the text boxes that prevent her from scanning it. Jones and Vermont Law School staff members have been working to solve the problem by using a number of different scanners in varying formats. The school has worked to accommodate Jones' needs, including setting up a large screen computer for her in the library and assigning a mentor to help guide her through each class. A student note-taker is also assigned to provide Jones with class notes for every class.

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Last year Jones involved herself in another challenging situation when she discovered that the state of Vermont planned to merge the Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired (DBVI) with the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. As someone who had received help from DVBI throughout her 21 years in Vermont, Jones worried that the merger would result in a reduction of services provided by DBVI. Jones recognized that the loss of certain services could potentially destroy the opportunity for many visually impaired people to live independently. She points out that ''achieving independence involves much more than simply learning job skills.'' Jones responded by working with a lawyer who serves on the DVBI advisory council and was able to identify one statute that created a clear separation between the DVBI and the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. She found a second statute that required 90 days be given to the legislature prior to such a merger and was able to slow the process down. But Jones didn't stop there. She fought the merger from every angle, including letter-writing campaigns and rallies as well as phone calls to the governor's office. The merger plan was dropped and the DBVI still offers services that enable the visually impaired to achieve independence.

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