Structured Negotiation Articles

First Accessibility Agreement in U.S. to Use WCAG 2.1: Reached With Structured Negotiation

November 25, 2018

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… Read more…

Forget the Shark and Be a Dolphin Instead: Structured Negotiation Skills for Practitioners

November 17, 2018

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… Read more…

Structured Negotiation Delivers Landmark Results in Portland Sidewalk Case

July 16, 2018

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. Read more…

Lawyers Need Soft Skills: A Book Review

May 31, 2018

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. Read more…

Marlaina Lieberg and Ken Metz: Advocates Extraordinaire

May 20, 2018

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. Read more…

Sue Ammeter, Blind Disability Rights Champion, Dies at 69

April 16, 2018

The list of Sue Ammeter’s advocacy roles could fill this post. Board member (and often officer) of the American Council of the Blind, the Washington State Council of the Blind, and the National Braille Press are just some of the organizations Sue Ammeter volunteered with on top of her paid work. Organizations that will miss the talent, commitment, and unstoppable advocacy of the Washington state resident who died on April 7, 2018. Read more…

Gratitude for a Poached Egg (an Accessibility and Negotiation Strategy)

March 3, 2018

Whenever I travel, I try to eat in local restaurants serving traditional foods. That’s how I found myself at 417 Union in Nashville last month eating poached eggs, grits and a biscuit. The eggs were perfect and I asked the waitress to thank the cook for me. She came back later and told me: “His day is going to go a lot better now that he knows he done good.” Her comment sums up my experience as a negotiator in the digital accessibility space. Everyone wants to know they have “done good.” Telling them so is a powerful negotiating strategy. Read more…

Structured Negotiation in Dispute Resolution Magazine

August 16, 2017

This review of Lainey Feingold’s book, Structured Negotiation, A Winning Alternative to Lawsuits, was published in the Summer issue of Dispute Resolution Magazine, a publication of the Dispute Resolution Section of the American Bar Association. It is available in PDF format on the ABA’s website. Read more…

Lawyers as Changemakers: The Global Integrative Law Movement

July 26, 2017

The New York Times ran a powerful obituary on July 26, 2017 about Scharlette Holdman, an unsung woman who devoted her life to inmates on death row. The obituary described those who sought to emulate Holdman’s career by saying “Many mitigation specialists who followed in her footsteps are journalists and social workers. ‘It’s the antithesis of being a lawyer; it’s all about human feeling and connection..'” Is that true? Is human feeling and connection the “antithesis” — the opposite — of being a lawyer? Read more…