About Lainey Feingold

Lainey Feingold with microphone in hand

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This page has information about Lainey Feingold. Lainey is a disability rights lawyer and an author. For twenty-five years she has focused on technology and information access issues for blind people. Lainey worked on the first legal agreements in the country about Talking ATMs and web access. Instead of filing lawsuits, Lainey uses Structured Negotiation. It is a strategy that focuses on problem solving. With this method, she brings together disabled people, businesses and governments. Together, they work to make tech available to everyone. Lainey is a public speaker who has been honored for her work.

Welcome to Lainey Feingold’s “About” Page.  Here you can find the following information:

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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 worked for the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), a private union-side labor firm, and a private civil rights firm. From 1992 – 1996 she was Litigation Director at the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF) in Berkeley, California.

In October 1996 Lainey opened the Law Office of Lainey Feingold.

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Overview of Lainey Feingold’s Law Practice

Lainey represents disabled people seeking full participation in the digital world. For twenty-five years her principal work has been with the blind and visually impaired community on technology and information access issues, including web and mobile accessibility.

Along with co-counsel, she has developed Structured Negotiation, an alternative to filing a lawsuit that emphasizes collaboration and focuses on solution. Lainey’s book about Structured Negotiation was published by the American Bar Association in 2016.

Using this method, Lainey and her co-counsel have negotiated more than 60 settlement agreements without filing a single lawsuit. She has negotiated these agreements with some of the largest organizations in the United States, including American Express, the City and County of San Francisco, Bank of America, Weight Watchers, CVS, Wal-Mart, Major League Baseball, and Wells Fargo Bank.

In addition to handling her own cases in Structured Negotiation, Lainey assists attorneys across the United States who want to learn the alternative dispute resolution process. Since 2019 she has also served as an accessibility subject matter expert for the non-profit Disability:IN.

Lainey has long worked with the blind community nationally in successful efforts to obtain Talking ATMs, accessible websites and mobile applications, tactile point of sale devices, accessible (audible) pedestrian signals, talking prescription labels, audio description equipment, and alternative formats including braille, audio, electronic and large print.

In addition to her work with the blind community, she has 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.

Lainey was a founding steering committee member of the Disability Rights Bar Association (DRBA), a national organization of disability rights lawyers.

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Lainey’s Book

Lainey’s book, Structured Negotiation: A Winning Alternative to Lawsuits is now available from Amazon and other online book sellers and from the American Bar Association. The book is a hands-on guide to practicing law withOUT lawsuits. It includes stories from Lainey’s twenty years of working with blind people and advocacy organizations on technology and information access.

Lainey launched her book at the Ed Roberts Campus on October 16, 2016. Since that time she has spoken across the United States and in Canada and Australia about Structured Negotiation and collaborative problem solving, and about digital accessibility.

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Honors and Awards

Lainey has been recognized for her Structured Negotiation and digital accessibility work:

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    Media Coverage and Interviews

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    Speaking Engagements

    Please visit the Speaking Page on this website to learn about Lainey’s recent and upcoming presentations, testimonials about Lainey as a speaker, and her availability to speak about Structured Negotiation, digital accessibility, and disability rights.

    On the Speaking Page you can also find recordings of completed presentations when available.

    Visit the Trainings Page to learn more about bringing Lainey to your organization or conference for a deep dive into digital accessibility law and policy or Structured Negotiation as a tool for collaborative problem solving.

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    Co-Counsel

    Lainey’s principal co-counsel in her work has been Linda Dardarian of the Oakland, California civil rights firm Goldstein, Borgen, Dardarian and Ho. Linda has played a critical role in developing Structured Negotiation as a dispute resolution method and in effectively implementing it in the majority of the cases described on this site.Linda shared the 2014 California Lawyer Attorney of the Year Award for disability rights with Lainey.

    Lainey has also worked with attorneys who are part of the National Disability Rights Network, including NDRN lawyers in Illinois, Texas, California, and Massachusetts. Other Structured Negotiation co-counsel include Dan Manning of Greater Boston Legal Services and Matt Handley of the DC civil rights firm Handley Farah & Anderson.

    If you are a lawyer with an issue you think might be suitable for Structured Negotiation and are interested in discussing a possible co-counsel arrangement, please contact Lainey.

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    Lainey Feingold’s website and social media accounts

    The Law Office of Lainey Feingold maintains this website and the LFLegal Twitter account to share news and information about Lainey’s work, about developments in the digital accessibility legal space, and about Structured Negotiation. Both platforms also provide information of general interest to the blind community, the broader disability community, the digital accessibility community, and anyone interested in the rights of disabled people or resolving legal disputes without conflict.

    The website was first launched in 2008 and updated in 2016. In addition to providing information, it is intended to demonstrate that a law firm website can be made accessible for disabled people. Read our Accessibility Page.

    In 2008 an earlier version of this website was included in the implementation report issued by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as one of two sites meeting Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level AAA. Read the post about LFLegal.com and the WCAG implementation process.

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