Structured Negotiation Articles

Structured Negotiation Delivers Landmark Results in Portland Sidewalk Case

July 16, 2018Updated on August 3, 2019

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…

First Accessibility Agreement in U.S. to Use WCAG 2.1: Reached With Structured Negotiation (Alameda County accessible voting case)

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…

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…

Mindful Lawyers: First Meditation Conference for Lawyers

November 2, 2010Updated on April 2, 2018

Close to 200 lawyers, judges and law students gathered at the University of California Berkeley Law School this past weekend for the first ever Mindful Lawyer Conference. The goal? To help the legal profession explore how contemplative practice — the meditative perspective — can benefit not just individual lawyers but anyone touched by the legal system, and even the system itself. 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…

Lawyers as Peacemakers: ABA Publishes Comprehensive Resource

July 1, 2010Updated on January 7, 2018

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… Read more…

Lawyers as Changemakers: The Global Integrative Law Movement

July 26, 2017Updated on January 7, 2018

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…

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…

Web Accessibility for Grocers: Winn-Dixie Wasn’t Paying Attention

July 7, 2017Updated on August 11, 2017

Last month the Winn-Dixie grocery chain lost the very first trial under the Americans with Disabilities Act about the accessibility of a private company’s website. A blind shopper had sued the chain when he couldn’t access online coupons and other parts of the company’s website. The judge’s verdict was big news; unlike most accessibility stories it was covered in the mainstream media. But web accessibility for grocery stores is nothing new. If Winn-Dixie had been paying attention, it would have known over three years ago that grocery chains were making their websites accessible. Winn-Dixie should not have waited for the legal knock on the door. When it came, it should not have put up a fight. Read more…