Working Blind Episode 9 – Matthew Johnson, Lawyer

Matthew Johnson has been blind since birth. He moved from Bermuda to the UK to attend a school for the blind, studied languages at university, and now works as a lawyer. Follow Matthew on Twitter.

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Transcript

[music]
Holly: Working Blind, sharing stories of working blind people from across the globe. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Working Blind. This is the first episode that I’ve actually recorded since the coronavirus pandemic started, so we may end up talking a bit about that.
Today I am here with Matthew Johnson who is a lawyer, and he’s going to tell us about his life and his work. Hi, Matthew.
Matthew: How are you doing?
Holly: Good. How are you?
Matthew: Can’t complain too much.
Holly: Even though you’re locked down?
Matthew: Well, I’ve been working from home since about April but to be honest, it hasn’t changed much for me.
Holly: Well, I’m sure a lot of your work is done on the computer and we’ll get to that in a minute. I want you to tell us a bit about yourself, about your job, and about your life up until this point, just briefly.
Matthew: Just a premise. I work in IT and data for a national firm in the UK. For those who perhaps aren’t familiar with the area, I will do everything from software development contracts and cloud computing contracts through to data protection and privacy law and that kind of thing. Pretty much everything with a strong tech focus and a strong business focus is where I would say most, if not all, of my law practice comes from.
I’ve been a qualified lawyer for five years, so I’ve been in the legal profession for seven now. Basically, I came to law after my first degree. I did my first degree in languages and then switched into law. Did a post-grad in law, which I think it’s still called the GDL, they might change it, where you take the three years’ worth of an entire law degree and then zip them up into one year where every student loses a lot of sleep. In my case, breaks a coffee maker.
Then you do one further year and then your two years as a trainee. The whole route to being a lawyer if you already have a degree is four years. If you don’t have a degree, you do three years and then the extra year, so it’s still four, but it’s different. Then you do two years of training.
Holly: You didn’t grow up in the UK, did you? Can you tell us a bit about that?
Matthew: Yes. I grew up in Bermuda originally. 65,000 people, very small island in the Caribbean. Bermuda is known for a couple of things, tourism and tax evasion being the most prominent, and cricket sometimes.
I grew up there till I was 15 and came to the UK. Came to Worcester, did that for three years in the UK, and then stayed because I knew going back to Bermuda, the accessibility wasn’t there. I was not going to get a job there straight up and had no interest in trying. Bermuda born, and then lived now just a bit over half my life in the UK.
Holly: In terms of when you were growing up in Bermuda, what access did you actually have to schooling and how typical is it for blind children in Bermuda? How many blind people are there for a start and what kind of access do they have to even a primary education?
Matthew: This is a really difficult question. I think also it’s changing quite a lot nowadays because I was one of the first to do it. I think I am actually the first blind Bermudian to get as far as university. I think that that’s actually true. I’m happy to be corrected on that, but I think I’m right.
Back when I was doing it, I had an aide basically who did braille and did the access and made sure that things were brailled up, but we didn’t get books. Imported most of the time, or if we did, they came about halfway through the school year and we only got the first five volumes, which had already been studied so they were of no use. All that kind of stuff happened a lot.
Most of the time, what we ended up doing was OCRing, scanning the page that we needed, preferably before the class in which I needed it, getting it proofed with her help, and getting it on disc. From a very young age, I was using a laptop to do everything.
The only way that that worked is because I had a charity that was backing me and I did a lot of my own fundraising with that charity. I gave speeches to funding bodies when I was 10 and networked and stuff from an early age, because that was the only way I was going to pay her salary. That was the only way I was going to be able to buy the laptop and the access software, was to be out there and talking about it and getting good grades. You know what I mean?
Basically toeing the line to make all that happen. Nowadays it is different. There is a charity. Well, it’s much more advanced. It’s the same charity, but it’s called Vision Bermuda now. They’re doing stuff with younger students. There’s actually a UK trained blind specialist out there now who’s doing work there. They still have an incredibly long way to go and they ask me things on occasion about how to do X, Y, and Z in an accessible way, or what I think is the best way forward when teaching someone this, that or the other thing, but I think they are improving.
I don’t know from a modern perspective now how good it is for someone who’s young and blind in Bermuda, but I can tell you, I was one of the first to do it and we made our own rules because there were none.
Holly: The government doesn’t actually support financially blind students in education?
Matthew: No.
Holly: Even now?
Matthew: They certainly didn’t back then. I strongly doubt that they do now. I don’t want to give a definitive on it in terms of 2020, but I can certainly say that back then they did not and there was no interest in that at the time.
Holly: What motivated you or your family for you to go to Worcester? I presume better access.
Matthew: My parents weren’t qualified to teach things like cooking and life skills and they thought, perhaps erroneously, that Worcester would fill the gap and I would be progressing academically whilst at the same time learning the life skills that I would need going on.
Holly: How did your life change, because you were fairly young when you basically moved to the UK by yourself. Although you went to school, I’m sure it was a huge cultural adjustment in some ways.
Matthew: It was. The main thing for me was I had never– I have met one other blind person before I was 15. One. One young person who was blind, who was going through the same stuff in Bermuda. She came to England as well eventually.
I didn’t know any other blind people. I’m going into Worcester and I’m thinking, this is so bizarre. So many people around are having these same things and having the same problems. You go to the canteen and it’s a long bar where you go down and get given food without having to think about how am I going to dish this up without spilling it everywhere?
All of this stuff is already thought of and dealt with. Sometimes arguably not in the best way, but on your first day, you’re just thinking, “Oh man, this all just suddenly works. How is that possible?” That impression over the years has stayed with me to the extent that I sometimes get frustrated when people in the UK complain about access and say, “Well, this doesn’t work, this doesn’t work. Why can’t I get this? Why am I not being given this, that, and the other thing?”
I think, “You have no idea how lucky you are to get to this point. You have absolutely no conception of what it’s like to build your own ruleset because you don’t have one.” That’s where I come from. I take a slightly harder line on this sometimes than other people do, because I know the difference.
Holly: Right, because you grew up somewhere where there just wasn’t that level of choice, so access was not even considered. You went to Worcester and you studied for your A levels. What was the experience like there in terms of access and then when you progressed onto university for your languages degree?
Matthew: Worcester was good for access. I did languages then and politics and stuff. I think the battle that I fought at Worcester perhaps unbeknownst to most of them, the students that came after me then benefited from me fighting certain battles when I was there, because I said from the beginning, “No, I’m not accepting this massive five-volume textbook for A-level politics. I’m not accepting it in braille, give it to me electronically.”
This was a massive battle with the administration to say, “Well, you’re going to get it in braille because this.” I said, “No, I’ll get you an A grade, but you give it to me in the format that I want it in.” I did. I kept my word on that one, but it was a massive thing. Then of course, as soon as everyone found out that I had been given stuff in electronic format, everyone else was clamoring for it to be given electronically. I started a bit of a revolution, which I hope continued after I left.
Holly: I think it probably has given what I know of the technology, and certainly having a blind person working in IT now at Worcester. Students are using–
Matthew: Oh yes, that’s right. I forgot about.
Holly: Yes, Sean
Matthew: Hi, Sean.
Holly: Students are using a lot of– They may use braille, but often refreshable braille, which obviously is great because you can have your access to electronic books and your braille if that’s how you find learning effective, but it means you have the convenience of electronic formats as well. I think that has stayed at least to an extent. What was university like for you?
Matthew: University was fine, to be honest. It was just on the cusp of changing. There was a lot of book-based textbook stuff, but it was starting to go online. It was 2007. A lot of people were starting to read their uni textbooks online, but it hadn’t necessarily gone–
I’m in the situation where I’m ringing up French– I remember ringing Hachette in Paris to try and convince them in my first year to send me something electronically, whatever, and having this debate in French about accessibility with the guy at Hachette who did not want to talk to me. All this time I’m thinking, “Well, this is a trial by fire.” You do it because you’re the one who has to do it.
I think now it’s probably easier. I hope it is, in that sense. The team that I had at uni was fantastic and they were always so ready to be like, “Oh, we’ll just record it if it’s not ready. We’ll just sit there with a Dictaphone for a couple of hours and just record the text.” Of course, then tests my listening skills when it’s supposed to be testing my reading skills. That’s a different question.
They were always ready to jump in and do, which was awesome. That was the main thing. You got to have a team who’s ready to back you. They could see that I love the work and all that, and then they were more than willing to do it. That went pretty well. I did a year in Spain, which you had a great experience in your year abroad. I had a terrible experience in my year abroad because I was teaching. I think you went to a uni, didn’t you?
Holly: I did. And I went to Colombia.
Matthew: I should have done that. Much like the rest of my life, I was swayed by the promise of money.
[laughter]
Matthew: Hey man, look, I might as well own it. I was basically told, “Well, you’re going to get paid if you go and teach.” I thought that was a great idea. I don’t necessarily always recommend that. Over the uni years, I think access was, in general, reasonably good. I didn’t have any major issues.
Holly: How did you find access to the social side of uni? I had overall a decent experience. I was never massively popular, but I think that’s probably my personality, to be honest, if we’re being very real about this. I never really felt overly excluded, but what was it like for you?
Matthew: Now, that I really, really struggled with, especially because I was coming out of a situation where I was obviously, I was in Bermuda, then I was at Worcester and then I was in uni and then, Oh boy. The jump is real. I’ve seen multiple people, so many people get affected by this. It’s a question then of how do you then deal with this massive campus of 16,000 students who just like you obviously– Well, not just like me, but just like me in the sense of our dealing with this great big new experience, but then they’re obviously just leaving home. They’re uncertain about absolutely everything. They’re not used to living on their own 95% of them. How do you work within the confines of that experience?
That was really, really difficult. Eventually, the strategies that I ended up using were that I connected well with people on my course because there were French societies and Spanish societies and stuff like that who would do meetups and study type sessions and practices with native speakers and that kind of stuff. That’s where I found my nerdy people. Small groups, you’re not in clubs, the emphasis in those contexts is on the ability to communicate. That played to the strength.
My thought with all of this is always play to your strengths. Don’t try and link up with the people on your corridor and go to a club because that’s where they’re going, because in most cases, you’re probably not going to be comfortable there. You’re not going to be able to show yourself that well if you’re struggling to communicate, navigate and all the rest of it with people you don’t know and don’t know you. Play to the strengths that you know you have, is the advice that I tend to give on that.
It worked for other people. I’ve seen it work for other people where they go to these crazy things and suddenly they develop these incredible friendships. I’m like, “How did you do that?” Should never be set in stone, but that was always my very logical strategy. “Okay, this is probably a type of gathering where I’m not going to be at a significant disadvantage.”
Holly: It’s tough. I said I had a good experience. I really did, but I didn’t have loads and loads of friends and there were definitely times where there were things I wanted to do that I felt like perhaps I couldn’t or shouldn’t do, because I would be a burden as well. That was definitely something that I would often consider was, well, I could do this thing, but someone is going to have to give me a lot of support to do it. Do I always feel comfortable asking for it? Sometimes I would, depending on the person.
I went to Colombia for a year and I basically partied for a solid year and I just had friends who were willing to do it and friends who wouldn’t let me not do it. They would come to my house and drag me out and give me that support. I think because they were so determined to, I felt less awkward asking, but there’s definitely some times you feel that people are going to say yes, but only because they feel like they should. That was hard.
Matthew: No, indeed. You make fast friends there and the good ones stay. That’s the rule of these things.
Holly: Oh, yes. Did you go straight into your law degree or did you take time in between?
Matthew: I did.
Holly: You did?
Matthew: No, I did. I went straight up. I was at a crossroads at the end of my degree. Well, last year of my degree. I was at a crossroads because I was really tempted towards interpreting. Translating, and interpreting. I love that world and I know people who are still in it and they do really well and I really wanted to do that. At the same time, I knew that that’s often a freelance world where you don’t know necessarily that you’re going to get employed next week, but you know that you’ve got a job tomorrow, but who knows after that.
That didn’t always appeal to me because I was like, “Well, I don’t know how that’s going to work. Am I going to a different client site every day and how does that going to work from an accessibility perspective?” God knows, I do not like to deal with public spaces very often. They just stress me out. I’m like, “All right, how are we going to do this?” Then obviously law was a possibility. I knew a couple of people who had gone down the legal route.
Then the thing is, as a solicitor anyway, you know you’re going to get a paycheck. Getting in the door is very hard, but if you know that you get in the door, you develop a specialism and you know you’re going to get paid and you’re going to be able to have a job every week and you’re going to be respected for that. It was very much a conscious decision of what can I do that won’t cause me to completely lose my soul, but by the same token will guarantee a level of employment that is steady and that will continue to be there for years on end? Very conscious way of thinking. Again, people don’t like to hear this. I always tell people, don’t follow your passions necessarily because then passion comes to what?
Holly: Oh, don’t say that. [laughs]
Matthew: No, I believe it. I believe it and I’ll stand by it. Then your passion just becomes work. What do you do when you get home?
Holly: Oh my God. That’s true.
Matthew: By the same token as a blind person, sorry, but you get less latitude to follow your passions than you might want.
Holly: Yes, it’s true. Unless your passion happens to be something profitable. The reality is blind people have extremely low rates of employment. People with our level of vision– Do you have any vision? Do you have light perception?
Matthew: No. Well, I think maybe, I don’t know, half a percent or something. If it goes from pitch black to sunlight, I can see that.
Holly: We’re in the category where we are 90% unemployed. Only 10% of us have jobs, as opposed to the 30% of us.
Matthew: Is it that much?
Holly: They’re RNIB stats.
Matthew: I didn’t actually know that. I didn’t know the breakdown.
Holly: The RNIB statistics are actually really good and they differentiate between people with some vision and people with hand movements-
Matthew: Oh, wow. I should check that out.
Holly: -or less, which is us. We are only 10% employed, which is quite disturbing. I think it is true. Unfortunately, job security has to form part of that because whether we like it or not, we’ve got to pay bills and eat and hopefully, not live in poverty, which the sad truth is that many blind people do live in basically poverty. I think being motivated by job security is not what people want to hear, but I think sometimes it’s the decision you have to make. Then you finish that course and then you had to do your actual training. Did you go and work for a solicitor during that training?
Matthew: Yes. Well, you have to. This may have changed now. To do what’s called the LPC, it’s 7,000 or 8,000 to do it. A lot of people won’t do it unless they are sponsored by a firm because it’s so risky to risk that much financially and then be at the end of it, to have this qualification and no firm to go to to train. I got a sponsorship from a firm in the Midlands and that’s the whole interview process and stuff like that, which we probably should talk about.
Holly: I have questions about that.
Matthew: Yes, I know. We’ll get into that.
Holly: Did you disclose your blindness?
Matthew: Oh, this is it. Fine. This is complicated.
Holly: Were you a student at the time? Can you tell me when you applied
Matthew: Yes. You have to. You’re doing the GDL and everyone is applying for these sponsorships for the LPC while we’re doing the GDL. I don’t recommend the GDL if you are prone to stress because it’s the worst year of your life. I’m not even going to lie. As I say, you’re doing a whole law degree whilst at the same time fighting for this funding to do this next year and getting a job at the end of it and doing interviews. It’s not fun.
Thank God I didn’t have any access issues or I think I might have actually thrown myself out a window. We’re doing all these interviews and part of the problem, which every blind person has, it’s going to be the first thing everyone says, what was your main issue when you were doing interviews at uni experience? What is the experience that you bring to the table of working in a commercial environment of working?
They’ll say, well, look, being a waitress is commercial experience, because you’re keeping clients happy, you’re making sure you’re doing things efficiently. You’re doing X, Y, and Z. You’re probably managing difficult people sometimes. Even as a waitress, you can use those examples while we can’t. What’s our experience? Unfortunately, a lot of the experience that I had at that time was blindness-related because I was doing advocacy work in Bermuda during the summers and stuff like that, and doing accessibility things back home and whatnot.
A lot of it was blindness-related. I had to disclose it because otherwise, I had no experience to talk about, and it was just relevant. Later, I won’t disclose now, I’ll say that. I won’t disclose now because I have enough client experience that I can talk about, which blindness doesn’t relate to. Now I won’t disclose, but at the time I had to.
Holly: How did that go?
Matthew: It was mixed. I was doing the job application thing and two other blind lawyers had done it either at the same time as me or right before. A couple maybe two years before or whatever. I’m not going to lie, there were certain firms that rejected all three of us before even a first interview. I’d just think, “Okay, you knew. You knew and you didn’t want to deal.” I think that there’s a reality to that, I can never prove it. I’m sure it wasn’t the case in every situation. I have no doubt that these law firms receive thousands of applications at the end of the day. We’re not the best candidates ever to have graced the CV.
[laughter]
Matthew: That’s great, that’s fine, but I have no doubt that there were situations in which the rejection was VI related. I’m certain of it. By the same token, we all did a lot of interviews. We all got rejected 20 times. That’s not an exaggeration, it was about 20, because that’s standard for doing an applications process. The interview process itself, the main thing that I would say to people doing this or thinking about doing this, not just in law, but if you’re going corporate, if you’re going company.
Anyway, this works, I think, is obviously, they’re not allowed to ask about the blindness stuff. They’re not allowed to. You have grounds to sue them if they do. In most cases they will know that and they will actively avoid asking about those things. You have to bring it up in the interview. You absolutely have to, because they’re wondering how the hell do you read the screen? How the hell do you research? How do you use Westlaw or whatever accessibly? How does this work? I don’t understand how this individual got through law school.
This is how they’re thinking. You have to take that by the horns. Typically, at the end of every interview there’s the the question of, they always say, “Well, have you got any further questions for us?” I say, “Well, actually–” and I would sometimes ask something and I’d say, “Look, but by the same token, I feel like perhaps maybe we should spend five minutes and let you ask a few questions related to how I access my job, how I would do the work.” I open that door for them because 95% of the time they’ll walk through it.
Holly: That makes complete sense. I think it’s one of those things that you have to do. You have to acknowledge your blindness and actually own it and own it in a good way. Own it in the way in which you have answers. Also think about some of the questions you might get. This is something I’ve been looking at a lot as I was going into my post-graduate degree and even doing PhDs.
I think PhDs are a bit more forgiving because a lot of it is based on my research proposal, but even so, look at what questions is someone likely to ask? What don’t people know about blindness? I don’t want someone to ask me a question then to not– If someone says to me, “Okay, how do you use statistics software? How actually do you handle statistics?” I need to be able to answer that question. I need to have thought of what my answer might be.
Matthew: Absolutely. Like every other interview question, they always say, “Well, think about what the person’s actually asking you.” What they’re asking you in a blindness context is what problems am I going to have to deal with, with you as a new employee? That is what they care about. They may be interested in the answer as well on a level of, “I did know this, I’m interested.” What their main question really is is, “How is this going to effect the dynamic of my team? Are they going to be able to fit in, is this new person going to be able to fit in with my team so that the work can get managed in an efficient way which, works for the clients.”
That’s what they care about. Later up the chain, the questions are around profitability and stuff. I do want to talk about that because that’s really important. That’s what they care about. Are you going to be profitable?
Holly: What’s your working life been like in terms of accessibility, in terms of actually what you do as a lawyer, what software you use, just all of that kind of thing? What’s it been like for you?
Matthew: Complicated question. The first thing that I will lead with is that the firm that I’m at and that I came to five years ago, I’ve stayed with. They are stunning, they’re really, really good people and they want to help out even when they sometimes can’t. There’s always an effort being made in one way or the other. There have been times when an accessibility thing has gone wrong and that has left someone else holding the bag with a client waiting for something or whatever. That has happened. They have been so good about it. I’ve been very lucky in that sense and I know it.
In terms of technology, I have an assistant who’s a paralegal. She works part-time for the firm and part-time for me using access to work funding for the Brits. She basically will make sure that if I’ve drafted a contract, things are in line, the numbering works. The clause references are properly field coded, because that’s not as accessible as you might think to do. At least I don’t know how to do it accessibly. If I’m doing a PowerPoint presentation, “Well, okay, that works. That slide looks correct,” you know what I mean? This kind of stuff. They’re thousand tiny little things.
I remember recently I had to ask her, “Can you check the Polish retail price index from this graph, because I cannot read it.” The weird stuff that you sometimes don’t realize isn’t accessible until you need it. I’ve always had a paralegal who has a law degree and who probably wants to come in as a trainee, for example. They often become paralegals for a couple of years if they can’t get a training contract straight away.
They will come in at that level and work with me. The way I always deal with that, so you learn very quickly how to manage someone by the way, because they are working with you. They’re expecting you to lead and to give instructions and to manage the personality of whoever that person is. All of that matters and you get thrown into that your first day as a trainee. You are being managed and you are learning how to be managed and how to produce work.
You are also managing and learning how to manage someone else who is more junior to you, but maybe who doesn’t have any more experience in the job market than you. Maybe they have more, which can be worse. If you get a paralegal who’s been a paralegal for 10 years, they have very distinct ideas on how they do things, and that ain’t going to work for you most of the time. You have to retrain those expectations in someone who is senior to you in age and in experience.
You learn to manage someone and you learn how to do it in a way that doesn’t cause ructions between you, because you’ll be working very closely with that person. That’s hard. That’s very hard.
Holly: How do you learn that?
Matthew: It’s just an experience thing. It’s an experience thing. It’s being able to handle a situation where, for example, they make a mistake and you look like an idiot on a call with a client, and that happens. It’s happened to every blind lawyer that I know. One of them last week missed a court date because their paralegal didn’t tell them in time.
Holly Oh no.
Matthew: That wasn’t a fun phone call that I got from them last week, I’ll say that. It happens to everyone and you have to handle that properly and be very firm and say, “This expectation was not met and this is what you’re here for,” kind of thing. At the same time, “Okay, everyone’s human. Please, do not ever do this again, because we’re paying you to do this correctly,” kind of thing. You will also make a mistake as a junior lawyer. You will make mistakes where you get called up on the carpet by someone very, very senior. It’s an experience both ways.
Holly: Do you think making mistakes is hard bringing your blindness into it, or do you think people have viewed it in the fact that you were junior lawyer and that happens? Were you ever worried, I guess, is what I’m trying to ask? That people might–
Matthew: Oh yeah. Obviously, as a junior lawyer anyway, you want to make as few mistakes as possible, but as a VI lawyer, you want to make even fewer of them, because obviously– Yes, 100%. Sometimes the mistake isn’t you. Sometimes the mistake is access.
Holly: Has that happened to you where there’s been poor accessibility?
Matthew: Oh yes, that has definitely happened. That has definitely happened. You then have to own it with a client there and be like, “Okay, look, to be honest, this is why I didn’t see it.” Sometimes you will in the heat of the battle have to tell them, “Yes, by the way, I can’t see.” My clients have pretty much universally been awesome about it. A lot of people are really nervous about that, especially now with Screen Share, because everyone uses Screen Share. That is not accessible and of course, you then have to tell a client who you’ve probably worked with for the last year, “Yes, by the way, I can’t see and I can’t use Screen Share.
Holly: Yes, of course. That makes sense. In terms of the systems you use at work, how has the accessibility been with those?
Matthew: Well, almost universally problematic. There are systems out there which are used by many, many law firms all across the world that are not accessible. They’re used in thousands of huge, huge installations across the world and they’re not accessible out the box. You have to use private scripter and contractors to make these things accessible and of course, that only helps you.
That doesn’t help the next person at another firm in California who wants to use that same package and who can’t. Then they have to get an external scripter and to make it work for them. The whole problem with that is well, you know what, actually, we should be in a situation where things that are used by this many people are accessible.
Holly: Do you think there’s some irony that the law profession is not accessible and that there are accessibility laws, but obviously those laws aren’t strong enough, but there is a certain irony, isn’t there?
Matthew: 100%. Especially because it’s a bit of a stereotype, blind lawyer stereotype. Hello, it’s a thing. You would think that if there were a profession where I would be able to, for example, view all my financials, pre-time record, access my case management, et cetera, and in a completely usable, accessible way, it would be law.
Holly: Do you think companies need to be more accountable and actually produce software that’s accessible?
Matthew: My thing is, and this is a harsh truth, but it is one. That is that I can tell you for an absolute fact that when your firm is negotiating the software import for their file management solution or their financial solution or whatever, to point out to them that it is inaccessible will not derail those negotiations. Even the firms that do care, like mine did. I negotiated the contract for one of the biggest systems that we use across the firm, made the changes and negotiated it with the other side directly.
Also, I might’ve snuck in a few digs whilst on that call about how accessible their software isn’t. I might’ve done that. By the same token, saying to everyone, “Hey, this really isn’t accessible.” It’s not going to derail those negotiations. It just isn’t.
Holly: What about these software companies themselves? Do you think they need to be?
Matthew: That’s where it has to happen, but then because of the point that I just made, what is the financial incentive? What is their incentive to make something accessible from a purely profit and loss point of view? Well, there isn’t one, because like I just said, it’s not going to derail any negotiations with any firm if you point out they’re not accessible.
Holly: I suppose the only incentive would be that they could be penalized. If it was a law, for example, that could be a financial incentive.
Matthew: Yes. I’ve come around to that way of thinking over the past two or three years, because I always thought engagement is the right way to do it and you engage with developers and you’ll get there with them. You can cut through the red tape by engaging with the right person at the right time. I have revised that view in the last few years because it doesn’t work.
At this stage, I think the only way to get around this problem is at a legal level. That presents its own challenges. What is accessible? How do you legislate for accessibility? Also, what’s the difference between something that is accessible versus something that is usable. Those are really important questions. I’m not qualified to answer them, but they are important.
Holly: It’s a problem and someone’s got to solve it. Perhaps not either of us, but it has to be solved. How do you think the profession is going to be for blind people going on from now? You’re a lawyer, this is your job, you’ve found ways of doing what you do, are you concerned about the future?
Matthew: Yes. Unequivocally, I would say yes. There’s a lot of strings to that bow. The first thing is, this is an area that every blind lawyer I know has dealt with, but we’ve never spoken about it publicly, I think. I can’t find any public discussions of this that I’m about to get into and so this might be a first but we’ll see. I’d be also interested in how lawyers in different countries deal with this question. This is around billing and profitability. Your first question as a lawyer is, are you profitable? Are you profitable for the firm? You’re charging out at X amount per hour. That means that you have a monthly or annual target of Y, what do you have to do to make that?
The question is, of course, as someone who is VI, you will, especially in the early part of your career, but even where I’m at, you will be slower. You will be slower than your sighted counterparts unless you’re on the phone negotiating with someone, where obviously everyone’s on the same page. To draft a contract or to deal with some of the things that we deal with, you will be naturally slower. There will also be paralegal time to make the thing work and to look right. That’s a cost, even though it’s not directly built because obviously, clients aren’t expected to cover that cost, reasonably.
Where you end up with then is that most of the VI lawyers that I know have lower targets against their sighted counterparts. Obviously, the problem with that is then in pure commercial terms, how do you make the case for a blind lawyer before they come into the business? The thing that I would say about that is there isn’t really a way of getting around that because as the access challenges increase, the time that is taken will increase.
My rule of thumb is if I’ve done a six-hour chargeable day, I’ve probably done a 10 hour day at least. Sometimes less if it’s particularly a good day. Then what does that mean? It means that to become a VI lawyer and to be successful at it, you will be doing extra work to get to the same place. With the increased access challenge, with the best will in the world of the firm, they’re like, “Well, what do we do with this?” I would be very concerned with blind lawyers in a private practice, client-facing context from that point of view.
Holly: What do you think is the solution? Mandating accessibility?
Matthew: Part of it, yes. Also what I would say on an individual blindness level is, if individuals are going that route, think about perhaps not being client-facing. Think about being an in-house lawyer for a company where you’re not charging by the hour. Where your profitability is not directly linked to your number of hours on the clock. You could be an in-house lawyer for a company, you could be a government lawyer or you could be in any of those kinds of situations where you’re not so directly pressured. I know some VI lawyers who have done that, who have made that jump, and I know others who really want to. That is just the reality of the situation. Private practice also can be awesome.
Holly: That makes sense. What skill is, I suppose, if a blind person said, “Well, I want to be a lawyer.” What is your response to that?
Matthew: Firstly, be good with tech. Be very good with tech. Be above average with tech, I would say, as your first thing. Know what your access needs are in terms of tech. Know if you need to get scripts and know how that works and all the rest of that. That’s your first thing, but I would say that about most jobs nowadays. Be fundamentally above average with technology.
The other, I would say, is if you can do something like a public speaking course or something like that, or if you can do one of those type of things before you get into presenting to people or doing the interviews or whatever, do as much of that as you possibly can to see how you come off. Learn how to present yourself, whether that is against two people in a client room, or 100 people in a presentation. Learn how you do that and get used to doing it. That would be my second thing.
The third thing I would say is, get experience in something either commercial or team-related or bring to the table in an interview, an example of a situation where you’ve led a team, you’ve done a massive group thing, or you’ve done something commercial in some way or businessy. If you’re not going directly into the commercial law, then volunteer for something like the CAB in the UK, the Citizens Advice Bureau. Where you’re giving advice to people and you’re dealing with people in emotional situations and learning how to deal with the human element.
This was said to me a number of years ago when I was interviewing, and I remember it all the time. When you’re being interviewed generally, the person across the table is again, asking you about your skills, but also saying, “Can I deal with this person at 11:30 at night when we’re on a massive deal that has to be signed at 9:00 AM the next day and we’re all stressed out of our minds? Is that a person I want next to me then?”
Holly: I think that’s a good question to ask in life in general. [laughs]
Matthew: 100%, but it’s so important. Especially if you’re in a VI context, it’s so important to get into the mindset of the person who’s across the table from you.
Holly: Yes, and to really understand that. That’s great advice, actually. I guess, one final question is what are your hopes and plans for the future, if you’re comfortable sharing?
Matthew: It’s a good one. I’m sticking it basically, at the moment, and staying in the loop hopefully for some time. I don’t see myself progressing to partner level in private practice because of the financial stuff and all that, and I have some stressors around that. It’s possible that at that point I would go in-house or shift focus to a certain extent so that I wasn’t quite so focused on the billable hour. That is where I would like to end up with that, but I don’t see a point at which I’m not practicing or dealing with– I don’t see myself going into teaching, I don’t think, per se.
Holly: I cannot imagine you teaching. I’m sorry, I can’t.
Matthew: Indeed. I prefer to be at the coalface. You know what I mean? I do.
Holly: You would hate teaching.
Matthew: Yes. Maybe I would do some slightly more data privacy, advocacy kind of stuff, or working for that kind of an organization that’s arguing for data privacy rights and all those kind of things that I believe in. It’s still legal, but a different side of law kind of thing. Yes, I want to be at the coalface, I want to be doing something with it in some way. Who knows exactly where that’s going to lead, but yes, I got some plans.
Holly: Well, thank you. This has been wonderful. I just really appreciate you giving me so much of your time to record this. I know we’ve been talking about it for ages and ages, so thank you.
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Holly: Thanks for listening to Working Blind. If you liked the podcast, please subscribe. For more of my advocacy initiatives, including my blog, visit my website, http://catchthesewords.com. You can also find me on Twitter and Instagram at Catch These Words. That’s C-A-T-C-H T-H-E-S-E W-O-R-D-S. If you have any comments or feedback, please email me, holly@catchthesewords.com.
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