Law Office of Lainey Feingold
Disability Rights Legal Advocacy

On January 13, 2010, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco will hear oral argument in an important case regarding the rights of movie-goers with visual and hearing impairments. The appeal challenges a 2008 District Court decision out of Arizona holding that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) does not require theaters to install descriptive video equipment. The Law Office of Lainey Feingold and co-counsel Linda Dardarian filed an Amicus Brief explaining that the court’s decision should be reversed.

The Law Office of Lainey Feingold is pleased to announce that The Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse is now posting settlement agreements reached using Structured Negotiations. The Clearinghouse web site is a collection of documents and information about civil rights cases from across the United States organized in selected case categories. Its goal is to allow “greater understanding” of the importance of civil rights litigation in this country.

In August of this year, blind advocates in Pakistan demanded an end to widespread discrimination against blind people by the banking industry in that country. Their advocacy has paid off. In early December 2009, the Islamabad-based International News and The Nation published articles, posted here, with the headlines “Banks directed to permit blind people to open accounts” and “Ministry to install ATMs for visually impaired.” The articles report that all banks in Pakistan will now be required to allow blind citizens to open their own bank accounts and will issue information in Braille to facilitate banking independence. And, for the first time, Talking ATMs are being planned for installation in Islamabad. Efforts to end discrimination in Pakistan against people with disabilities in insurance and micro-lending are also underway.

The press release posted here was issued by the American Council of the Blind to recognize October 1, 2009 as the tenth anniversary of the first Talking ATM in the United States. As a result of extensive advocacy by the blind community and industry effort, it is estimated that there are now close to 100,000 Talking ATMs in the U.S. and around the world. Congratulations to the blind and visually impaired community for this accessible technology milestone.

This post is one in an ongoing series on the history of the advocacy and technology behind Talking ATMs. A short summary of all articles in this series is available by selecting the Talking ATM History link on the Categories Page of this website. In this post you can read about early Massachusetts Talking ATM advocacy and Talking ATM efforts in Chicago and the Midwest.

Structured Negotiations were not the only legal strategy used by blind advocates interested in expanding Talking ATM installations in the United States. In this post you can read about successful Talking ATM litigation that increased the numbers of Talking ATMs in the United States. Litigation also played another role in the history of Talking ATMs. On at least two occasions, the blind community was forced to object to class action settlements that did not fairly address the issue of accessible ATMs. Read about objections to class action settlements that threatened Talking ATM advocacy.