On this About Page you can read about Lainey Feingold’s background and an overview of Lainey’s work. You can also read about Lainey’s Co-Counsel, her speaking engagements, press coverage of her work, and honors and awards. You can also read a Simplified Summary of this Page.
Before Opening the Law Office of Lainey Feingold
Lainey Feingold graduated law school in 1981 and has been a disability rights lawyer since 1992. Between 1981 and 1992 Lainey represented labor unions, and then represented employees in race and gender discrimination suits. From 1992 - 1996 she was Litigation Director at the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF). In October 1996 she opened the Law Office of Lainey Feingold.
Overview of Lainey Feingold’s Law Practice
Lainey represents persons with disabilities under federal and state law, primarily in matters seeking class-wide relief. Her principle work is with the blind and visually impaired community on technology and information access issues.
Along with co-counsel, she has developed “Structured Negotiations,” an alternative to litigation emphasizing collaboration and focusing on solution. Using this method, she has negotiated more than 35 settlement agreements without filing a single lawsuit with some of the largest institutions in the United States, including American Express, Bank of America, Wal-Mart, Major League Baseball, and Wells Fargo Bank.
Lainey has long represented the blind community nationally in efforts to obtain Talking ATMs, accessible websites, tactile point of sale devices, accessible (audible) pedestrian signals, and alternative formats including Braille, audio and large print. She has also resolved numerous other cases on behalf of persons with disabilities, including national class actions against Shell and Chevron resulting in ADA implementation at over 5,000 service stations across the country. In 2000, Lainey was selected as a California Lawyer of the Year.
Co-Counsel
Lainey’s principle co-counsel in her work is Linda Dardarian of the Oakland, California civil rights firm Goldstein, Demchak, Baller, Borgen & Dardarian. Linda has played a critical role in developing Structured Negotiations as an advocacy and dispute resolution method and in effectively implementing it in the vast majority of the cases described on this site. As an expert litigator, Linda also has the lead role in the lawsuit that her firm and the Law Office of Lainey Feingold filed against JetBlue Airways filed on behalf of the blind community in 2010. Read the post about Linda Dardarian’s designation as a “2010 California Super Lawyer”. Visit the litigation category on this website to read more about the JetBlue case.
Lainey has also been privileged to work with attorneys who are part of the National Disability Rights Network. Stan Eichner, formerly Executive Director of the Disability Law Center in Boston, Massachusetts, was an invaluable co-counsel in the Structured Negotiations with Fleet Bank, Sovereign Bank, and Citizens Bank. Amy Peterson, of Equip for Equality in Chicago, Illinois, took the laboring oar on the Structured Negotiations with LaSalle Bank and with TCF Bank.
If you are a lawyer with an issue you think might be suitable for Structured Negotiations and are interested in discussing a possible co-counsel arrangement, please contact Lainey.
Speaking Engagements
Lainey is a frequent speaker at disability rights and accessible technology conferences and meetings.
2012
Lainey is scheduled for two presentations at the 27th Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference (CSUN) at the end of February, beginning of March in San Diego, California. She will be addressing the Plenary at AccessU at CSUN, a mini “conference within a conference” focusing on web accessibility and inclusivity. She will also be presenting at the main conference with her colleague Linda Dardarian on the topic of the role of law in making the web more accessible and inclusive. Read the post on Lainey’s 2012 CSUN presentations.
Also in 2012 Lainey is scheduled to present at John Slatin AccessU in Austin, Texas in May. More information coming soon. She will also be a guest lecturer in the Disability Law Class at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
2011
In January, 2011, Lainey was the keynote speaker at the California Digital Inclusion Celebration in Berkeley California. Read about the Celebration on the Yahoo Accessibility Blog.
Also in 2011 Lainey also spoke at the CSUN Disability and Technology Conference, was the keynote speaker at the Conference on Employment and Visually Impairment at Baruch Computer Center For Visually Impaired People in April, and was the plenary speaker and a panel presenter at the John Slatin AccessU 2011 in Austin. Read about the CSUN Panel on Accessible Technology Policy.
2010
In 2010, Lainey was an invited panelist at the United States Access Board Public Information Hearing on Accessible Diagnostic Medical Equipment (DME). Lainey spoke on “Discrimination Law, Equipment Barriers, and Legal Settlements.” Read the full agenda of the Access Board DME meeting. She also spoke, as she does often, at the national convention of the American Council of the Blind and the statewide convention of the California Council of the Blind.
More Information about Lainey’s Speaking Engagements
Other information about Lainey’s speaking engagements can be found in these posts
- Lainey’s Spring 2011 conference presentations
- Lainey’s 2010 conference presentations about Structured Negotiations
- Speaking engagements in 2009 and Earlier
If you are interested in inviting Lainey to speak about Structured Negotiations, accessible web sites, Talking ATMs or other accessible technology, please use the contact page on this website.
Publications and Press
Over the past several years, Structured Negotiations have attracted the attention of the legal media. Read the Law.com article about Structured Negotiations. Read the Daily Journal article about Structured Negotiations.
Other media coverage of Structured Negotiations can be found in chronological order in the Structured Negotiations Articles Category on this site.
Press releases about settlement agreements reached as a result of Structured Negotiations can be found in chronological order in the Settlement Agreement Press Releases Category on this site.
On the Categories page, you can read press releases by topic. An alphabetical list of all press releases is also available. These releases and the articles they generated appeared in national and local media across the United States.
Lainey occasionally writes book reviews and cultural commentary for BeyondChron, an on-line new journal of which her husband Randy Shaw is the editor. You can find links to Lainey’s Beyond Chron pieces in the BeyondChron Post on this website.
Honors and Awards
Lainey has received the following honors from the blind community and the legal community for her Structured Negotiations work:
- Access Award from the American Foundation for the Blind (2008)
- Special Achievement Award from the American Council of the Blind (2007)
- Special Advocacy Award from the California Council of the Blind (2000)
- California Lawyer of the Year, California Lawyer Magazine