– I’ll Just Write It Down
“I’ll Just Write It Down.” Exploring One of the Key Barriers Faced by the Deaf Community When Accessing Professional Services.
Within the legal profession, we are taught it is best practice to explain concepts to our clients in a simple way, without a heavy reliance on jargon. After all, can a client consent if they don’t fully understand what’s going on?
Picture the scene: you’ve got a meeting with a Deaf client at 10am. You haven’t met them before but it’s a simple Will consultation and shouldn’t take more than an hour. In your enquiry notes it says they’ve requested an interpreter which your assistant may or may not have arranged. It doesn’t really matter though. Deafness means a person can’t hear, not that they can’t read. If there’s no interpreter, you’ll just have to write your conversation.
The client arrives but no interpreter does. You begin to write out your initial questions. The Deaf client seems confused and their responses are basic and, at times, irrelevant to the question being asked. You can’t understand each other.
For many Deaf people, particularly those who use British Sign Language (BSL) as their first language, written English presents a particular challenge, not least in situations filled with subject-specific language you are unlikely to hear in everyday conversation. BSL is a full language with its’ own grammar and communication conventions, recognised as a language in its own right in 2003 by Tony Blair’s government.1 It has nuance and a rich linguistic history dating back hundreds of years. Contrary to popular belief, it is not simply a signed equivalent of English.
Research by the National Centre for Special Education Research concluded that one third of Deaf children leave school with a reading age of between seven and nine, with one in five (particularly those who are profoundly Deaf since birth) having a reading age of less than seven.2 How can we expect our Deaf clients to understand terms like ‘beneficiary’, ‘executor’, or ‘bequest’ when their reading level matches that of a Roald Dahl book? For a Deaf client, these terms make about as much grammatical sense as ‘esio trot’. Even amongst those with a higher level of English comprehension, legal and financial jargon can still be difficult to comprehend. As of 2023, only 37.7% of deaf students (inclusive of BSL users, lip-readers, and those who use speech) obtained a strong pass in both GCSE English and Maths.3 Scores were particularly low for students who sign, as English is considered their second language.
When looking at the same year’s results, 55.4% of hearing students obtained the same strong pass in GCSE French.4 It would be considered ludicrous for us to expect a client to discuss their Will in French, so why should we expect a Deaf BSL user to do so in English? A BSL interpreter allows Deaf clients to express their views in their language, ensuring full understanding for all parties involved. By providing an interpreter, both the client and the professional can have peace of mind that what the client wants is what they will get.
In the scenario above, writing was used in place of a qualified interpreter. What initially appeared have been a simple solution resulted in confusion and potential distress for a client who couldn’t get their views across effectively when discussing an important legal document. From your perspective as a professional, not only would this be damaging to the client-company relationship, but also a financial mistake as the meeting was a waste of time and will have to be redone at a later date, costing you more time and lost working hours. The client might even go elsewhere. Furthermore, the meeting notes specified a request for an interpreter. Failure to provide an interpreter when one is requested is a violation of a disabled person’s right to reasonable adjustments as set out by the Equality Act 2010.5 As a legal professional working with a Deaf client, we have a duty to ensure their needs have been met. Deaf people don’t come with their own personal interpreters, and the responsibility for booking one falls on your firm.6
The idea that writing is a valid substitution for professional sign language interpreting when working with a Deaf client is a widely held belief, but one that can have frustrating consequences for both the professional and their client. At the Advisers for Deaf Network, we aim to educate professionals on how to work with Deaf clients and understand their unique needs, with an emphasis placed on asking and following the client’s communication preferences. Situations like the above can be simply rectified with a little foresight yet are all too common within the Deaf community.
About the ADN: The Advisors for Deaf Network (ADN) is a not-for-profit initiative which exists to increase accessibility for d/Deaf clients accessing Legal and Financial Services. The ADN blog serves as a resource for increasing awareness of the barriers faced by the d/Deaf community in accessing services and for promoting best practice in accessibility.
1 Russell Taylor, ‘British Sign Language Bill’, House of Lords Library (2022)~
2 Amy Lederberg, ‘Special Education Research and Development Center on Reading Instruction for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students’, NCSER (2019)
3 ‘Deaf pupils achieve entire grade less at GCSE’, NDCS (2022)
4 ‘Results Statistics – June 2023 Exams’, AQA (2023)
5 ‘When is Sign Language Interpretation Required by Law?’, SignSolutions (2022)
6 Ibid.
