[blindlaw] The Blue Book

[Nightingale, Noel]

Jim:

I did not serve on law review so my input may not suit your needs.
Nonetheless, here it is.
After I stopped being able to see the Blue Book citations, I just
memorized the ones that I used most frequently  and used a reader when I
had an obscure reference to cite.

More recently, I have used an on-line resource provided by Cornell law
at:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/citation/

I do not know whether the Cornell Law citations comport exactly with the
Blue Book, but it at least gives a good start.

Noel

-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of McCarthy, Jim
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2007 8:08 AM
To: NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List
Subject: [blindlaw] The Blue Book

I received some recent inquiry about the Blue Book in other words, the
citations bible for many law students and an essential companion of
anyone who participates in law review or other law journals during the
period of law school.  When I was in law school, admittedly fifteen
years ago, the Blue Book was available on tape from Recordings for the
Blind and Dyslexic.  I always thought that this was not the most
desirable medium to convey its information though the RFB&D readers did
a conscientious job of illustrating the citations examples.  My
understanding is that today RFB&D still makes the Blue Book available.
It is now in DAISY format but they still only utilize the audio function
and not digital text.  This means that although technology has improved
a lot, younger students are still listening to explanations of citation
examples rather than having the ability to look at them in Braille or
using a screen reader for review.  This though I think the latter two
options would make them easier to understand.  Apparently, Bookshare has
a scanned version of the bluebook but they admit it is full of errors,
so I am told.

This all has me wondering a couple of things.  I want to hear from list
members who were on Law Review or other law journals.  I would like to
know how you managed the cite checking required of you in these
activities.  This would include swapping tasks for a task easier to
perform, using a reader for the Bluebook citation reviews or whatever
other methods you devised.  I also wonder if anyone avoided these
activities because of their access difficulty, perceived or actual?  You
can respond to me off list if you would feel more comfortable.  My
intention is not to challenge anyone's competence as a blind person or
the like.  Instead, I think those of us who are lawyers, and those of us
on our way to being lawyers should work toward making this essential
publication usable in today's electronic digital environment and I think
that having stories will help me play a part in that process.  Your
stories are most appreciated.  My email address is
jmccarthynfb at earthlink.net.  Thanks Jim McCarthy
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