Accessibility Practices for the Disability Law Journal at UCLA

Four UCLA Law students standing next to the Disability Law Journal launch celebrationposter.

The Disability Law Journal at UCLA (DLJ) focuses on current topics in disability law and related fields. The DLJ seeks to develop a discourse regarding disability law by publishing articles; editorials; and interviews of practitioners, academics, policymakers, and other members of the disability law community. In the spring of 2023 and in the spring of 2024 the DLJ asked the to Disabilities and Computing Program (DCP) for help working with a blind scholar from who would be collaborating on an article. 

The DCP met with the scholar to understand their assistive technology and software preferences. After meeting with the Scholar the DCP developed a digital documents accessibility training aligned to their needs. In spring for 2023 and 2024 The DCP trained DLJ staff and students on digital accessibility, with a focus on accessible collaboration in MS Word document authoring and commenting. The DLJ implemented accessibility best practices for digital documents and successfully authored the article in collaboration with the blind scholar. The DCP trained over 60 law school students and staff from the DLJ in spring 2023 and spring 2024. The plan is to train the DLJ annually in the spring to ensure all accessible collaborations with people with disabilities.