Vol. 4 No. 38 | Sept. 18, 2024
Courts
- 2024 OK 63: SPENCER v. NELSON
- 2024 OK 64: STATE ex rel. OKLAHOMA BAR ASSOCIATION v. SMITH
- 2024 OK 65: IN THE MATTER OF THE ESTATE OF EVANS
No published opinions this week.
No published opinions this week.
Dispositions Other than by Published Opinions
The Supreme Court of Oklahoma Court Calendar
The Supreme Court of Oklahoma is in session year round, unless otherwise noted. The court regularly schedules conferences on Mondays and other days as needed.
Member Transitions
More
The results of the July 2024 bar exam have been posted to the Oklahoma Board of Bar Examiners website. Of the 407 who took the exam, 315 passed with a 77% passage rate. The posted list of results includes those who passed the July exam. A swearing-in ceremony for new admittees will be held Tuesday, Oct. 8, at the state Capitol in the House of Representatives chambers.
"The decision to pursue guardianship of a vulnerable adult or senior is a big decision and often mired in complicated feelings and familial relationships. A common scenario that leads to guardianship includes, but is not limited to, caring for a disabled adult child or a senior with cognitive impairment. The requirements for a finding of incapacity, documentation requirements, who can be a guardian, the distinction between general and limited guardianship and more are governed by Title 30, codified as the Oklahoma Guardianship and Conservatorship Act."
"This summer’s program, 'Artificial Intelligence: Shaping the Future of Law Practice,' was held in conjunction with the OBA Annual Meeting. It had good attendance and featured several experts who provided excellent educational content.
First impressions are important. The first impression many lawyers had of generative AI tools was learning that a lawyer in New York got into a lot of trouble using ChatGPT to research and write a brief for him. This was followed by several similar reports of other lawyers having the same issues. Even though the headlines stated that these lawyers were sanctioned for using AI, a deeper look reveals that the lawyers’ conduct also involved cover-ups and false statements to the court."
"The Oklahoma Bar Foundation is excited to announce the allocation of $267,497 in grants to support courtroom technology advancements. This funding is aimed at equipping courtrooms with the latest audio-visual components, which will significantly reduce technical issues that often cause court delays. Additionally, these improvements will enhance accessibility for individuals with hearing and visual impairments."
Featured CLE
By OBA MAP Director Jim Calloway
Closed captioning can be very useful for lawyers, whether you're communicating with clients with hearing issues or just facilitating more accurate communication. First, the terms "closed captioning" and "subtitles" mean different things, even though many people (and some technology companies) use them interchangeably.
Captions are transcriptions of dialogue used to assist viewers who cannot hear or completely understand a video’s audio. Subtitles are a language translation tool created for viewers who do not understand the language used in the production.
Hopefully, some readers can use that answer in a trivia game sometime. Captioning can be very useful for lawyers working with hearing-impaired clients.
POWERPOINT
Here’s an example of a positive use of captioning: You are going to present a CLE program in a room with poor acoustics and an inadequate sound system. You have concerns about people hearing in the back of the room. But several screens display your PowerPoint. The solution is to use the captions feature built into PowerPoint to display captioning for your live presentation. It is easy, and Microsoft has good online instructions. But you’d want to set it up and familiarize yourself with the tool before trying it in front of an audience. Most likely, you will need an external headset or other external microphone for this to work properly (it requires Windows 10 or later with PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 version 16.0.11601.20178 or higher).
PowerPoint also includes a subtitle feature that works the same way. There are five languages in addition to English that are fully supported for voice input now and another dozen in preview status. Who would have thought that with a bit of planning, PowerPoint could be a tool to communicate with hearing-impaired clients in the office?
ZOOM
If you’re hosting a video call, you shouldn’t forget about accessibility. Zoom includes an auto-generated captions feature called live transcription. The audience has the option to listen and read the captions. While this feature used to be limited to paid Zoom subscribers, it is now available to everyone. Once you enable captions in Zoom, attendees can turn them on as they wish.
There are some differences between Zoom meetings and webinars. Setting this up is simple but requires some decision-making. Your attention is directed to the Zoom support page on automated captions. Zoom has many available tools and features unknown to the casual user.
While speech recognition with live captioning may have some speech recognition errors, it is surprisingly accurate.
TEAMS
Live captions in Microsoft Teams allows attendees to read the words spoken during calls and meetings in Microsoft Teams.
- During a call or meeting, select More actions.
- Select Turn on live captions. You’ll receive a notification showing your set language. Live captions will then be shown toward the bottom of the call screen and will be visible only to you.
- You can turn live captions off at any time from More actions.
THE REST OF THE FIELD
Now that you understand what these tools are called and how they work, you should be able to determine how to use captions in any other tool you use by searching in the application’s Help file for the words "captions" or "subtitles." If those instructions are not easy to follow, try an internet search for “How to use captions in <service>.”
Your clients need to understand your advice. Your audience during a presentation needs to understand you as well. Every action you take toward making your legal services more accessible will be appreciated by the clients who benefit. Since these take an investment of time rather than money, they are truly a great value.
The Oklahoma Bar Journal is a publication of the Oklahoma Bar Association. All rights reserved. Copyright© 2024 Oklahoma Bar Association. Statements or opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff. Although advertising copy is reviewed, no endorsement of any product or service offered by any advertisement is intended or implied by publication. Advertisers are solely responsible for the content of their ads, and the OBA reserves the right to edit or reject any advertising copy for any reason. Legal articles carried in The Oklahoma Bar Journal are selected by the Board of Editors. Information about submissions can be found at www.okbar.org.