Did you know that one in four Americans is living with some sort of disability? Whether it be blindness, hearing impairment, physical, cognitive or otherwise, 25% of the population has to figure out work arounds for daily life that work for them. And in a world where those disabilities are often overlooked or not considered when planning for meetings, events, digital media, and more, finding those workarounds can be incredibly challenging.

Robyn Addis is joined by Richard Nenno, Senior Counsel at Young Conaway, as they discuss his experience as an attorney who is blind. Robyn chats with Dick about the challenges he has faced in the profession, and how he navigates his job on a daily basis to be one of the preeminent estate planning attorneys in the state of Delaware.

Robyn:

Hi, everyone. Robyn Addis here with Legal Internet Solutions Incorporated for this week’s livestream program, News + Views + To Do’s. I am so lucky to have with me today Richard Nenno, who is a Senior Council with Young Conaway in Delaware. I’m so grateful to our mutual friend Jenn Smuts for introducing us. I reached out on social media for, interested to interview somebody from the disabled community as part of LISI’s focus on diversity, equity and inclusion in the month of February. And she was kind enough to introduce me to Dick. Dick is a Senior Council as I mentioned with the Tax, Trusts and Estates Practice at Young Conaway. So Dick, thank you so much for joining me today. I’m so thrilled to have you on the program.

Dick:

Thank you, Robyn. I’m delighted to be here.

Robyn:

So just for everybody. So you are aware Dick is actually a blind person, and he has a 40 plus year career in the legal profession and so he is a frequent speaker and frequent contributor to the profession. So, I’m really excited to hear his insights, as a person who is blind, in navigating the challenges of being a blind attorney, or a person who is blind and also an attorney.

So, those of you familiar with our format, you will know that we are going to talk about news, what’s going on in Dick’s world, his practice, and just his world in general. His views in particular for this episode, his views on disability in the legal profession, and then to do, in particular my interest is things that I as a digital marketer, can be aware of and how we can make our digital marketing content more inclusive in particular, in this case to people who are blind. So Dick, I’m going to kick it over to you. Tell our audience about yourself, both personally and professionally.

Dick:

Well, I have been legally blind my entire life as the result of a rare retinal condition. I had some vision as a child but I’ve lost most of the useful vision as an adult. I actually was born at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and grew up in Buffalo, New York, and I’m still a long suffering Bills fan, most recently from those famous 13 seconds. But I went to special schools in Buffalo and learned two very important skills. One is braille, which I use to this to this day, and the other is touch typing. And that was back before computers had really come along. I will turn 70 in April.

I was educated in Buffalo, I went to Princeton for my undergraduate degree, Harvard law school, and then took a job as an associate with the law firm of Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll in Philadelphia for about five years, and after that, went to Wilmington Trust Company as an attorney in Delaware, for about 39 years. And I’ve now been at Young Conaway for a few months. I am married, my wife, Mimi and I have been married for over 43 years, and I have much of the joy in life, comes from that relationship. We have three adult children. One was a Marine Corp fighter pilot, I guess that’s one way not to have to compete with a blind dad. And he now works for Boeing in Seattle and has two kids. My daughter is a Trust Officer, and she and her husband have two little children that we get to see quite a bit. And then my younger son is a lawyer, and he and his wife live in Denver although they’ve traveled all over the place during the pandemic.

I’ve been a lifelong Catholic, my wife and I met singing in the cathedral choir in Philadelphia. And we’ve done, singing in and out of church choirs and community choirs ever since. I’ve always tried to be physically active. When I was young I could see well enough, to see the black line on the bottom of a swimming pool, so I swam quite a bit through high school, into college, and I still do that today for conditioning. I also ride a tandem bicycle with a friend, and he and I have participated, in long distance rides. The MS Society has 150 mile rides all over the country and he and I did the Delaware version of that ride. For 20 years I would ride 75 miles down. It’s called the Bike to the Bay. So we’d bike down to Rehoboth or Dewey beach, and if the weather was warm enough, we’d go in the ocean to relax, and then bike back the following day.

In terms of my career, I’ve been very blessed and fortunate, to have developed an expertise, in Delaware Trust Law, in the State Income Taxation of Trusts in Domestic Asset Protection Trusts, in jurisdiction selection, so that I’m known throughout the country. And I’m invited to speak at conferences throughout the country and even abroad, on my topics of interest. So, it’s been a very, interesting and fulfilling 69 plus years.

Robyn:

And you know what, I so appreciate every aspect of that story. In preparing for this conversation, I know know it was important to you to share that, you lead a very full and rich life and I think that everything you just shared is evidence of that. One question I have for you, that I’m sure our audience is probably interested in. As a blind attorney, what have you done to, or what accommodations have you needed, or how have you navigated your role, on a day-to-day basis?

Dick:

How do I do my job?

Robyn:

How do you do your job? Yeah, that’s succinct way to ask it.

Dick:

As you can imagine Robyn that’s evolved over the years. So when I started in practice in 1976, computers were just being invented. So I started recruiting and working with sighted readers, and they would do more than just read off a page, or a book to me, that as we got to know each other, I would involve them in legal research and editing, in doing interesting things. And I still work with one, sighted reader now who helps me with editing and background work while I’m doing things like this.

What has changed is that the technology has developed. It’s interesting that my first couple years at Ballard Spahr someone came by, with this product called Lexis, which was supposed to be this online computer research system. And that of course has developed Lexis and Westlaw have developed over the last few decades, and using my computer, which has a a program what’s called a screen reader, that will read what’s on the screen for me. So I can go into Westlaw which Young Conway uses, and retrieve cases and articles, and so supplement what I do with the the reader, with these resources. And unlike the reader, the computer never gets laryngitis or stops talking, so that there really is unlimited amounts of work, that I can do over the computer.

And also my emails I can retrieve, or I can read using the screen reader. And I should say that, reading the screen that’s important. I don’t need to be able to dictate into the computer. I mentioned that as a child I learned touch typing. So I’m quite comfortable doing that. In front of me I have a braille computer, which I use to input, when I’m writing a speech, or something I will input in braille, and using the SD card that goes into the back of it, I can transmit those word documents, to my legal assistant, to fix them up and edit them and format them properly.

So I use technology in a lot of ways now, while still using the sighted reader who’s a very important component, of that practice. I mentioned that I do use, Westlaw which is an internet service, but I find many other, internet webpages to be a challenge. People who are younger than I am probably have grown up, learning all of that technology but it’s something that I’ve had to pick up as an aside to a full-time job. Making websites easier to navigate, even for technology dummies like me would be very helpful.

Robyn:

Yeah. That’s one question I was thinking of while you were speaking, what percentage of websites or resources that you use do you find to be accessible?

Dick:

Well, it’s a chicken and egg thing. I find Westlaw to be quite accessible. Most others, I find challenging. Because they’re all different. And that is not as easy to find for me, as just being able to look at the screen. Same thing with the iPhone, I know lots of people can just glance down to see if they have a text that has come in, and it takes some work for me to retrieve, text messages on an iPhone. So I guess overall, whatever is available, over the traditional phone is really helpful. If I can call a medical provider and get a live person, or call and get information, over a regular phone, that is much easier and again that’s probably a function of my age, as much as of my technical knowledge.

Robyn:

My reaction to that is in a world where younger generations are sort of mocked for never wanting to pick up the phone and talk to anybody, they do everything over messenger or something like that.

Dick:

So I don’t lose this point. I would encourage, every individual is different. Every blind individual is different, but for me, if any of you happen to encounter me I’d encourage you to come up and talk to me. I’m not going to be able to pull you out of a crowd. I would encourage you, if you see he a blind person who looks like, the person is struggling, then please go up and ask if help is needed. And if it isn’t, that person should say, thank you, no, thank you. Or that there are times when help is really appreciated. Don’t be hesitant to approach blind people, at the same time please don’t come up and say, “Guess who this is.” Because we are not gifted, at least I am not gifted with instant recognition of voices, particularly in crowded noisy locations.

Robyn:

Right. Kind of going back to the point that you were making before just about accessibility. How do you find the legal profession in terms of inclusivity or its ability to be accommodating to blind people?

Dick:

Well, even though, I have been blessed and fortunate with my career, there’s certainly have been bumps. I would say overall the legal profession is not very welcoming to the blind. There are not very many blind attorneys, to my knowledge. And I think some of that is reluctance, to try people who are different in the way that I am different, even though there are a lot of very bright blind people, there are a lot of dumb blind people.

But I think that there are attorneys who could contribute in many ways to the legal community either, in my capacity as litigators, as business developers, but I think what is particularly true for blind people seeking employment is really to try to find a mentor, and for firms who are serious about, adding capable people, at least consider, blind people who appear to be capable.

I think it’s important to provide a mentor, for that person and really for any new associates who are coming into the practice, because the time that you spend training them, will increase the likelihood that they will succeed, and contribute to your firm’s success. One area that you and I talked a bit Robyn was diversity. I have been required to go to diversity programs, in my career either conducted by my employer, or by the American Bar Association. And I have yet to attend a diversity program that was accessible to me. All of the providers I think are geared up to do their fancy PowerPoints and videos, which fit, many of the disabilities. I’m sorry, many of the diversities, it doesn’t work for me at all. The providers might might say, “Well, why should we do this for one person?”

And I think the answer to that is maybe, that your failure to make these programs accessible, results in there being only one person, rather than a whole community of blind attorneys.

Robyn:

Right. And that’s really where this whole conversation and my desire to have this interview today comes from, is that when the word diversity is used I think people, perceive that to mean one thing, when it means a whole lot of things. And accessibility is a diversity that requires attention as well. And I think your point is very well put, that if we don’t make it accessible, how do other people who are blind or otherwise disabled, how do they feel that they can be a part of this community as well?

Dick:

Right, and it would benefit the community both. In terms of productivity, revenue service to clients, service to the public. So it’s just overall would be a good thing, if you get more blind people in the workforce, more of them will pay taxes and contribute to society.

Robyn:

Do you think that the increasingly digital and virtual world creates new challenges or new opportunities for the blind and partially sighted community?

Dick:

And being a lawyer I can say yes and no. As I mentioned I think the availability of online services has really, made it possible for me to to do, far more things than I would’ve been able to do without the technology. At the same time, new technology, is challenging and it’s very visual oriented. Actually even finding people who are capable of training, blind people to use the new equipment, to use the new services is very difficult.

There are very few trainers of, blind people available and of course, they’re busy, they’re stretched thin. It’s not just coming in with a training session that will work for 60 people, it’s something that I need specific training. And I is the only one need the specific training whereas, if there were other blind attorneys in the Delaware valley legal community, perhaps is something where we could combine services.

Robyn:

In what ways do you think that the legal profession needs, you’ve already named a few. Training and just awareness, but do you have any concrete ideas that we could take with us today today into our firms, or into our organizations to be more inclusive particularly for the blind community?

Dick:

Again, I kind of touched on this but I think the important thing is don’t automatically delete the resume from the blind person. At least take a look at it, if the person appears to be capable, bring them through the process, and think about doing mentoring, for the blind person, and for the other new people that you hire.

Robyn:

Are there organizations which either blind or sighted people can become involved with, to become more educated, to offer their services, and just to participate in to become more aware of this community?

Dick:

Yes, there are two principle advocacy groups for the the blind. There’s the American Council of the Blind, which is based in the DC area, and the National Federation of the Blind, which is based in Baltimore. They both have state affiliates, and there are other organizations for the blind. One that I take advantage of is the Xavier Society for the Blind in New York City. As I mentioned earlier I’m a Catholic and they provide the Sunday readings in braille, so that I’m able to be a lector at mass. People say you have great eye contact, ’cause I don’t have to look down at the text. I can just be looking out at the congregation, and reading along. And that is very special to me. There are many other groups, Learning Ally, I think it’s still based in Princeton, New Jersey, focuses on textbooks for the blind and people who have reading difficulties. There are many, many others.

Robyn:

Well, Dick I have to tell you, I so appreciate this and all the conversations we’ve had leading up to today, I am so thankful to Jenn for introducing us. I have learned so much from you. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you, and I appreciate your time and your willingness to speak with our audience about your experiences, and how they can be more cognizant, as they move forward in their daily work and in their career. So thank you so much for being with me today.

Dick:

Thank you Robyn and if you want to follow up I’d be glad to talk, or, if any of your listeners, want to get in touch with me, I’d be glad to talk to them as well.

Robyn:

You’re so kind. I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. And thank you everybody for tuning in today or listening. If you’re watching the re-broadcast or listening on our podcast, thanks so much, and we’ll see you next time. Bye bye.