Law Office of Lainey Feingold
Disability Rights Legal Advocacy

Alert: January 9, 2012 is the deadline to submit comments on the United States Department of Transportation’s pending airline web accessibility and kiosk regulations. In my earlier post about the positive and negative parts of the proposed regulations, I explained how comments could be filed on the “user-friendly” website called the Regulation Room. I recently discovered, however, that comments to the Regulation Room, while shared with the DOT, are not treated the same way by the DOT as comments submitted through the “official” Regulation.gov channel. And, because the official channel is not fully accessible, the federal government has an “optional submission form” that is more accessible. Optional? I thought federal government accessibility was mandatory?

Congratulations to the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) in the United Kingdom for signing up Barclays Bank as part of RNIB’s “Money Talks” program. Barclays has committed to install Talking ATMs at its branches by the end of 2012. Posted here is the article about Barclays that appeared on ZDNet UK on November 22, 2011.

The United States Department of Transportation is currently seeking public comments to its proposed regulations about accessible airline websites and check-in kiosks. The Department is using a new “user friendly” on-line platform to encourage comments, which are due January 9, 2012. The DOT proposed regulations have many positive aspects. However, there are also significant parts of the proposal that need to be strengthened to ensure full equality for people with disabilities in air travel. (Certainly the regulations should not be “killed” as one commenter on the new platform has already suggested). This post contains information on key aspects of the DOT proposal and information about submitting comments.

Talking ATM technology continues to spread across the globe. Earlier this month, the Standard Chartered Bank in Indonesia announced installation of that country’s first Talking ATMs. The full article that appeared in the Jakarta Times is posted here. Other posts on this website about Talking ATMs in countries outside the United States may be found in the International Issues category on LFLegal.com.

October 1, 2011 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the Law Office of Lainey Feingold. I had practiced law for fifteen years when I decided to strike out on my own in 1996. That year my daughters turned 10 and 7. I was afraid that continuing on the path my legal career had taken would extract too steep a toll on the kind of parent I wanted to be. As with most new adventures, I was unsure about what having my own law firm would be like. I certainly could not have predicted that I would find a collaborative way to practice law that helped to solve disability access problems while developing lasting relationships with incredible people. [More on that below.] Or that I would be able to practice law without becoming mired in the procedural battles and adversarial posturing that is all too common in my chosen field.

The United States Department of Transportation issued a press release on September 19, 2011 announcing proposed regulations on airline websites and airline kiosks. The proposed rules would require most airlines to have accessible websites within two years of any final regulation (which could be several years from now if at all). The proposal, if enacted, would also require kiosks purchased after any final regulation to meet accessibility standards. The full text of the announcement is in this post. The DOT’s proposed regulations come as the appeal is pending in two California lawsuits against airlines for failure to maintain websites and kiosks that persons with visual impairments can use.