Law Office of Lainey Feingold
Disability Rights Legal Advocacy

On July 25-28, 2010, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the National Council on Disability (NCD) will be convening its National Summit on Disability Policy 2010: Living, Learning & Earning. Lainey Feingold will be participating in this historic gathering.

The book review posted here was first published in the Book Review Thursday section of the San Francisco-based on-line publication BeyondChron. The book, written by lawyer J. Kim Wright and published by the American Bar Association, is titled Lawyers as Peacemakers: Practicing Holistic, Problem-Solving Law. The cover graphic shows a white dove of peace, olive branch in beak and brief case in wing. As discussed in the final section of this review, it is a graphic, and a book, that resonates with the Law Office of Lainey Feingold.

This post is one in a series about the history of Talking ATMs in the United States and worldwide. Structured Negotiations depends on the commitment, effort and creativity of many individuals, including members of the disability community who serve as Claimants. This post, about the history of Citibank Talking ATMs, includes an excerpt from a longer profile of disability activist and attorney Steve Mendelsohn that appeared in the Equity e-Newsletter published by WID. Steve was instrumental in advocacy efforts for Talking ATMs and was one of the Claimants in the Structured Negotiations with Citibank that resulted in that bank’s agreement in 1999 to install accessible ATMs.

Web Axe, a podcast and blog on practical web design accessibility tips, has featured the Law Office of Lainey Feingold’s website in its “Web Accessibility Successes” podcast. LFLegal.com was one of three sites featured in the segment. The other two accessibility successes were the website of British supermarket chain Tesco, and Sydney for All, the website about accessible activities and attractions in Sydney, Australia.

We disagree with Harkins that captioning and descriptive narration fall outside the ADA as a matter of law. As stated previously Plaintiffs are seeking an auxiliary aid, which is specifically mandated by the ADA to prevent discrimination of the disabled.— Ninth Circuit Opinion in State of Arizona v. Harkins

Great news for visually impaired movie goers! On April 30, 2010 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that audio description is “clearly” an “auxiliary aid and service” under the Americans with Disabilities Act. This ruling revives an Arizona lawsuit against the Harkins movie theater chain that had been thrown out of court in 2008.

The plaintiffs can now continue their case against the Harkins chain for the company’s failure to provide audio description at its theaters. The case can also go forward on claims brought by deaf and hearing impaired theater-goers for captioning.

For the second year in a row, Major League Baseball’s on-line ballot for All Star Voting has an audio CAPTCHA. This accessible security feature allows visually impaired fans to independently cast their all star votes on line. The audio CAPTCHA is part of Major League Baseball’s on-going initiative to improve on-line accessibility for blind baseball fans.