by Amy F. Robertson | May 22, 2019 | Uncategorized
The Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center (CREEC), located in Denver, Berkeley, and Nashville, is hiring a paralegal to work in our Denver office. Do you want a job where you are encouraged to take ownership of projects and to find creative solutions, and where you receive frank but productive and encouraging feedback? Are you the most detail-oriented person you know? Can you find humor in even the busiest days and most aggravating situations? Can you multitask? And by multitask, we mean Multi. Task. Do lots of different things at the same time. Juggle chainsaws. You know, the usual. Do you want to learn a lot about litigation and civil rights law? If so, you just might be the paralegal CREEC is looking for. CREEC is a nonprofit membership organization whose goal is ensuring that everyone can fully and independently participate in our nation’s civic life without discrimination based on race, gender, disability, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity. We are committed to this mission, and we promote it through education, outreach, and investigating and filing impact and class action lawsuits nationwide on a broad array of civil rights issues. We have three attorneys in Denver, one attorney in Berkeley, and one in Nashville. More information is available at www.creeclaw.org. We are looking for a smart, motivated college graduate who is extremely detail oriented, and who has strong writing, communication, and organizational skills to be our paralegal. You do not need prior paralegal experience. Proficiency or fluency in a second language is a plus. We request a commitment of at least two years. What we are looking...
by Amy F. Robertson | Feb 25, 2019 | Civil rights, Disability rights, Equal respect, LGBT rights
As we vow to do our best to kick as many asses as thoroughly as Carrie did. The world has lost a fierce advocate, brilliant lawyer, and talented photographer. Carrie Ann Lucas, a disability rights attorney who pioneered representation for parents with disabilities, died from complications from septic shock. She was 47 years old. CREEC recognized Carrie in 2016 for her work in intersectional civil rights, celebrating her outstanding leadership in disability rights, parents’ rights, LGBTQI rights, human dignity, and faith. CREEC’s Co-Executive Directors first worked with Carrie not long after they started their small civil rights law firm in 1996, when she asked us to challenge her graduate program at the Iliff School of Theology for their failure to provide access and effective communication. While she was working on her Masters of Divinity there, she worked with others to protest institutional racism on the faculty and in the library. This was not her first protest: early on, she protested her high school’s refusal to permit a disabled student to march with the band. After getting her M. Div., she worked at the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition, got her law degree at the University of Denver (on the full-ride Chancellor’s Scholarship), got a prestigious Equal Justice Works fellowship, and founded Disabled Parent Rights, a non-profit devoted to ensuring that people with disabilities have equal rights in parenting. She also became a national expert and trainer on the rights of parents with disabilities and, through her legal advocacy, secured decisions upholding and promoting those rights here in Colorado. Most recently she was recruited by the Colorado Office of Respondent Parents Counsel...
by Amy F. Robertson | Jun 5, 2018 | Americans with Disabilities Act, Case news, Civil rights, CREEC in the news, CREEC news, Curb cuts, Disability rights, Discrimination
(June 5, 2018) The Portland Bureau of Transportation announced a major milestone in the City’s efforts to make Portland’s streets and sidewalks more accessible to people with mobility disabilities. Yesterday, United States District Court Judge Marco Hernandez issued a preliminary approval of the settlement in Hines, et al. v. City of Portland. The class action seeks to ensure that the City’s corners are ADA compliant. The City of Portland has over 38,000 corners. Approximately 11,000 corners do not have curb ramps. Many other corners have ramps that do not meet current ADA standards. Corners that do not have ADA compliant curb ramps represent a significant barrier to safe and convenient mobility for people with mobility disabilities. This landmark settlement will take a major step forward in correcting this situation. According to the settlement’s terms, the City of Portland has agreed to construct and/or upgrade 1500 curb ramps per year for the next twelve years for a total of 18,000 ramps. The City has also agreed to survey all ramps in the next two years and establish a Transition Plan to map out how the City will ensure accessibility. “We have nearly 40,000 corners in Portland,” said Transportation Commissioner Dan Saltzman. “Each corner is an opportunity. With the correct curb ramps, each of these corners represents a chance for our city to provide safe and accessible mobility to for all Portlanders regardless of whether they are living with a disability or not. That is why I am so supportive of this settlement. Thanks to this settlement, we will double the number of ADA compliant curb ramps we build each year...
by Amy F. Robertson | Feb 27, 2018 | Americans with Disabilities Act, Civil rights, Disability rights, Title III
ADA Defense Lawyers Prolong Litigation and Postpone Access: A Case Study of Litigation Abuse Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits disability discrimination by private businesses. Lawyers who defend noncompliant businesses argue that their opposing counsel — lawyers who represent people with disabilities seeking to enforce their rights — engage in litigation abuse. They are lobbying for passage of H.R. 620, a bill that would add the requirement of a specifically-worded demand letter and four-month waiting period before a disabled person could enforce their rights. This case study of ADA defense litigation abuse suggests that ADA defense counsel are already guilty of prolonging litigation, postponing access, and ultimately enriching themselves at the expense of both the businesses they represent and the people with disabilities who continue to be denied access 28 years after the ADA was passed. H.R. 620’s requirement of a demand letter will remove any incentive for voluntary compliance and will add a new round of motions for ADA defense attorneys to file — challenging the wording, content, and specificity of the demand letter — on top of the already unconscionable litigation delay that is their standard practice. To demonstrate the opportunities for delay in which ADA defense counsel typically engage, we looked at a case that a group of retail trade associations held up as a typical Title III case. In a recent amicus brief to the Third Circuit, lawyers for the National Association of Convenience Stores, the National Grocers Association, and the Food Marketing Institute singled out the case of Heinzl v. Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc., No. 14-cv-1455 (W.D. Pa....
by Amy F. Robertson | Feb 6, 2018 | Americans with Disabilities Act, Disability rights, Discrimination, Title III
Congress is considering a bill — H.R. 620 — that would absolve all businesses currently in violation of the access requirements of Title III of the ADA — in place since 1990 — and permit them to wait to receive notice from a disabled person who encounters its discrimination, and then wait another six months to perhaps get some sort of solution underway. DREDF has some excellent resources and talking points. I thought this infographic might help explain how this bill rewards scofflaws and stops the progress of accessibility of the built environment. [There’s a separate image description of the infographic...
