Articles
This page has short summaries of every article posted on Lainey Feingold's website with links to the full articles. Visit the Writings Page to read Lainey's articles that were first posted in other publications. Visit the Topics Page for all 300 plus articles on this website organized into 38 topics including web accessibility settlements and Talking ATM press releases.
On November 2, 2018 Alameda County California, three blind residents, and the National Federation of the Blind announced a settlement designed to protect the rights of blind voters to participate fully in the county’s voting program. It is the first agreement in the United States to include WCAG 2.1 as the accessibility standard. The parties used Structured…
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For a recent keynote delivered at the third annual ICT Accessibility Testing Symposium I included the slide pictured with this post. If social media is any indication, it was far and away the most popular slide in my talk. The slide image was developed by Jared Smith of the accessibility consultancy WebAIM and is titled “WebAIM’s Hierarchy…
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The article posted here, written by Lainey Feingold, first appeared in the November 2018 issue of Just Resolutions, a publication of the Dispute Resolution Section of the American Bar Association. The November issue was organized by Women in Dispute Resolution (WIDR). WIDR is a “committee of professionals within the Dispute Resolution Section committed to ensuring…
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A September 26, 2018 article in the Credit Union Times brought a sigh of relief to those working for an accessible, inclusive digital world. The article was titled DoJ Refuses Request to Issue ADA Guidance for Websites. It announced that the Department of Justice was not going to issue any new regulations about web accessibility…
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During a recent presentation about the digital accessibility legal space I was asked a question. It was about a word that pops up with increasing frequency as fear of lawsuits drives too much of the digital accessibility world. The “C” word — compliance. The question was this:
If the captions on online videos are 65% accurate do you think that would comply with legal responsibilities?audience question
This is the kind of question that arises when people are driven by fear. When people forget what accessibility is about. Even forget what the law is about.
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On June 5, the city of Portland, Oregon issued a press release with the title “Major milestone reached in making Portland’s streets and sidewalks more accessible.” The announcement was reached as a result of a sweeping settlement negotiated between the city and residents who use wheelchairs. Under the agreement, Portland will install and upgrade approximately 18,000 curb ramps over the next twelve years. The agreement was reached in Structured Negotiation.
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On June 5, 2018 the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced a major update to the internationally recognized Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). WCAG 2.1 is the first update to the guidelines since 2008. The Law Office of Lainey Feingold is happy to have played a tiny part in the birth of WCAG 2.1 by updating this site to meet the Triple A (AAA) success criteria of the new standard. Lainey salutes her wonderful WordPress developer, Natalie MacLees of Purple Pen Production who did the work!
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Chapter 16 of Structured Negotiation, A Winning Alternative to Lawsuits is about traits like patience, trust, and optimism that lawyers need to resolve problems without litigation. I have now discovered Soft Skills for the Effective Lawyer – a book that is like my Chapter 16 on steroids plus so much more. It should be mandatory reading for every lawyer, law student, law professor, and CLE provider.
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This post is about an unsung hero of web accessibility — the Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The W3C WAI EOWG : Now you understand why I put ‘alphabet soup’ in the title of this post. But don’t let a clunky name deceive you. If you care about digital accessibility you need to know EOWG and probably already rely on its work without being aware of it.
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The past two months have seen too much loss in the blind advocacy community in the United States. In April I wrote about the death of Sue Ammeter, the blind activist behind a successful Structured Negotiation with the American Cancer Society. Then in May came news that Marlaina Lieberg and Ken Metz had died within days of each other. Both were committed advocates and Structured Negotiation champions.
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