Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C.

  • Established in 1977
  • Firm Size 681

  • Peer Reviews

    4.7/5.0 (1080)
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    • #26 in weekly profile views out of 485 Law Firms in Greenville, SC
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Attorney Awards
  • Martindale-Hubbell Peer AV Preeminent Rating
  • Silver Client Champion
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Disability Access

OUR FOCUS, YOUR GOALS The lawyers in Ogletree Deakins' Disability Access Practice Group have extensive experience helping their clients face the multiple challenges presented by Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other disability access laws. From defending class actions, to ensuring compliance with federal and state building standards-thereby eliminating the conditions that lead to litigation-to navigating the complicated regulations covering service animals, hotel reservations, ticketing, and Segways, our work is comprehensive. Clients of the firm include businesses and organizations in a wide range of industries-stadiums and arenas, hotels, sports franchises, amusement parks, hospitals and other health care providers, national retailers, and local governments. The representative examples of our work, provided below, demonstrate the breadth and diversity of our practice. While an important part of our practice concerns typical compliance matters and litigation related to architectural barriers across the country, a significant portion of our practice reaches beyond those more basic ADA issues to include complex class actions and ADA cases with challenges varied and difficult. As time has passed, there has been a marked increase in new types of claims and areas of compliance, and our attorneys have substantial experience with more novel Title III issues involving website accessibility, pool lifts, point-of-sale devices, reasonable modification of policies, practices and procedures, and the provision of auxiliary aids and services for blind and deaf customers and guests. Our attorneys also work closely with clients to keep them informed of new legal developments and trends, from rising numbers of Title III class action cases to new and proposed federal and state regulations.

BUSINESS-ORIENTED COMPLIANCE SOLUTIONS The Disability Access Practice Group is experienced in guiding clients through compliance challenges. In providing advice and counsel, we focus on finding practical, business-oriented solutions for cost-effective compliance. Some of the most common access issues and questions facing clients include the following:

  • how to avoid the most common triggers for architectural barrier litigation;
  • whether a website should be modified to allow access to the blind through screen-reading software, and to the deaf through captioning;
  • how to establish a customer loyalty program that is accessible to disabled and non-disabled patrons;
  • how to craft policies on issues ranging from Segway-usage and service animals to effective communication with deaf, blind, and mentally-disabled customers; and
  • how to oversee national accessibility surveys and remediation plans.

To meet our clients' compliance needs in this area, we have extensive experience providing advice and counsel to our clients' businesses in the following areas:

  • Architectural Audits: Clients commonly seek one of three approaches to evaluating and achieving architectural barrier compliance to best position their businesses to defend potential litigation.
    • Comprehensive Audits: Clients often ask our attorneys to oversee a comprehensive review of their facilities to understand what steps would be necessary to achieve compliance and to help design a remediation plan that is highly defensible in the event of litigation. By having our attorneys work with outside experts, we provide attorney-client and work product privilege protections to these audits that will help protect businesses facing litigation regarding their compliance efforts.
    • Basic Compliance Audits: Some clients ask us to help their businesses identify and eliminate the barriers that most commonly lead to architectural barrier litigation and develop a plan to achieve basic compliance to enhance the likelihood of avoiding the highest volume of architectural barrier litigation.
    • Multi-Location Audits: Many retail, restaurant, and hospitality clients seek our advice in fashioning audit and remediation plans that tackle multiple locations, either on a national or regional basis, or in jurisdictions (such as Florida, California, and Texas) where access litigation is most common.
  • Sports and Entertainment Ticketing Compliance: Since 2012, new federal regulations impose extensive obligations on businesses that host or promote events for which they sell or give away tickets. We can help identify the need for modification of ticketing and sales practices, through direct box office sales, Internet marketing and sales, and third-party ticketing agencies. We also develop policies and procedures to receive and process ticket-buyer requests for accommodations in seating, parking, and other operational steps.
  • Hotel Industry Compliance: The same set of new federal regulations also imposes extensive obligations on hoteliers in their reservations practices, including their Internet reservations. Hotel owners and operators also need policies and procedures to receive and process guests' requests for accommodations during their stays, and often a distinct kind of architectural audit.
  • Health Care Compliance: Hospitals and other health care providers are increasingly common targets of access and auxiliary aids and services litigation. We have extensive experience advising these businesses to develop compliance programs that will help ensure compliance and insulate them from this litigation trend.
  • Restaurant Compliance: Restaurants are frequently the targets of access litigation. In addition to the architectural audit and remediation work that is commonly needed in this industry, our attorneys help ensure basic parking, seating, and reservations policy compliance for members of the food and dining industry that will help eliminate the most common sources of their access litigation.
  • Higher Education Compliance: Colleges and universities face a host of access compliance issues because, in addition to operating schools and educational programs in which students require architectural and educational accommodations and auxiliary aids, most such institutions operate stadiums and arenas, housing, temporary lodging, health care facilities, and restaurants, each of which have been common targets for disability access litigation. Our attorneys have the depth and breadth of experience to help colleges and universities through this broad range of compliance challenges.
  • Fair Housing Compliance: Accessibility in private and public housing has also become a target for lawsuits. Our lawyers understand the unique challenges faced under federal and state fair housing laws, both in architectural compliance and policies and procedures to provide reasonable accommodations to disabled tenants and applicants.
  • Reasonable Accommodation/Auxiliary Aid Practices: Although architectural barriers have traditionally been the most common source of ADA litigation, the trend is toward more challenges to the operational practices and policies of public accommodations. We have developed a refined set of policies and procedures that instruct guests and visitors on how reasonable accommodations and auxiliary aids and services may be sought, and that create effective practices for processing those requests.
  • Training: Training is a critical component to ensure that the best policies and practices for disabled customers, patients, and guests are effectively implemented. We have extensive experience providing training for senior managers and the frontline employees who have direct customer and guest contact.
  • Website Accessibility: Owing to the recent explosion of website accessibility litigation and threatened litigation, the Disability Access Practice Group has established a Website Accessibility Team whose members have collectively handled several dozens of these matters, often against the lawyers responsible for the highest volume of these matters. Hotels, retailers, schools, and entertainment companies have been the primary target of these lawsuits, but no industry whose business uses a website has been immune. Our lawyers are poised to help you assess your exposure, bring your website into compliance, and respond to opposing parties and their lawyers, who have turned this into a rapidly-expanding area of practice.

In order to help clients provide these services in a manner customized to their business, and to achieve predictability in cost, we welcome the opportunity to design, on a complimentary basis, reasonable fee arrangements that meet our clients’ customized needs.

LITIGATION AND ADVOCACY As with most litigation, claims of accessibility violation are often presented in ways that allow resolution and remedy prior to the filing of a lawsuit. Our practice group attorneys have a practical understanding of threats made by customers, patrons, guests, or patients, and know how to help clients respond in ways that can often avoid litigation and reduce legal costs and accommodation retrofitting. When disputes turn into lawsuits or go to trial despite previous efforts to resolve them, our national network of practice group attorneys, experienced in successfully litigating the full range of Title III and other disability access legal claims, is available. Often, experts must be obtained to show compliance with laws and regulations, or to dispute claims of violation, so we have also established contact with leading experts in various disciplines. Our recent relevant litigation experience includes:

  • website accessibility litigation brought by blind, visually-impaired, and manually-impaired Internet users;
  • service animal litigation for national retailers and hoteliers;
  • charges of failure to provide "reasonable modifications" by an autistic patron of a national book chain;
  • multiple class action litigation matters, including:
    • website accessibility litigation for members of the hospitality and amusement park industry;
    • pool lift litigation in the hotel industry;
    • claims of failure to provide "reasonable modifications" to autistic amusement park guests;
    • claims of failure to provide transfer lifts and to remove architectural barriers for health care industry clients;
    • claims of failure to provide "auxiliary aids and services" to blind and visually-impaired amusement park guests;
    • inaccessibility claims regarding point-of-sale and automated teller machines (ATMs);
    • national retailers' architectural barrier litigation;
    • the defense of large cities and other governments in challenges to the accessibility of sidewalks and curbs;
    • defending hotels, stadiums, arenas, retail malls, big retailers, and other large venues in conventional architectural barrier litigation;
    • defending major municipalities and other governmental units from sidewalk and curb litigation; and
    • defending hospitals accused of failing to provide effective communication with hearing-impaired patients during their hospital stays and treatment.

Whatever the Title III needs a business faces, our team of experienced disability access lawyers across the country are available to help.

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Peer Reviews

4.7/5.0 (1080 reviews)

  • Legal Knowledge

    4.8/5.0

  • Analytical Capability

    4.8/5.0

  • Judgment

    4.7/5.0

  • Communication

    4.8/5.0

  • Legal Experience

    4.7/5.0

  • 5.0/5.0 Review for Jacob Credeur by a Partner on 05/04/15 in Employment Law

    Jacob is an excellent attorney, who is dedicated to his clients and his practice.

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  • 5.0/5.0 Review for Mr. Josh Chandler Harrison by a Partner on 07/28/14 in Litigation

    Josh Harrison has been co-counsel on a case with me. He is smart, careful, and efficient.

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Diversity

Ogletree Deakins has a long tradition of premier client service. It was founded on principles that remain core values of the firm today: premier client service; teamwork and collaboration; treating each other with respect; hard work; and open governance. As Kim Ebert, Ogletree Deakins' Managing Shareholder, recently said: “These core values permeate the firm’s culture and are the bedrock upon which we build our diversity and inclusion initiatives.”

Ogletree Deakins solicits, values, and incorporates myriad viewpoints as part of its philosophy and practice of inclusion.  This ensures ongoing creativity, innovation and efficiency in responding to changing global needs.

Ogletree Deakins is proud to be a member of the following nationally recognized organizations that promote diversity and inclusion in the legal industry.

FAN, the Law Firm Affiliate Network of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA). To be a FAN member, MCCA requires an express commitment to 10 Basic Principles, which MCCA research has determined to be hallmarks to advancing diversity.

The Center for Legal Inclusiveness is dedicated to advancing diversity in the legal profession by actively educating and supporting private and public sector legal organizations in their own individual campaigns to create cultures of inclusion. Its focused work in Colorado is on-going and forms the basis for all of its innovative programs and initiatives, many of which have become national models.

Ogletree Deakins is also a member of VAULT, whose stated mission is to “be the indispensable provider of information and solutions for professionals and students who are pursuing and managing high-potential careers.”

Membership in the Project for Attorney Retention (PAR), now Diversity & Flexibility Alliance (DFA), demonstrates Ogletree Deakins’ support for retaining and advancing women in law and for work/life balance for all attorneys, which is key to retaining top talent. 

Ogletree Deakins also encourages and supports membership and participation in local, state, national, and international professional associations. In the United States and Europe, our lawyers are active in organizations such as the following:

• National Bar Association (NBA)   
• National Asian-Pacific Bar Association (NASABA) 
• European Employment Lawyers Association (EELA) 
• International Bar Association (IBA)  
• The Law Society of England and Wales  
• The City of London Law Society   
• The American Bar Association  
• The National Lesbian and Gay Law Association
• The Cuban American Bar Association
• Association Internationale des Jeunes Avocats (AIJA)
• Lambda Legal
• The National LGBT  Bar Association
• The Hispanic Bar Association

Furthermore, Ogletree Deakins lawyers have held the following positions among others:

 • The former Chair of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the NBA
 • The former Chair of the Black Solicitors Network
 • Member of the Management Board of The Law Society
 • An Officer and Board member of the Korean American Bar Association of Southern California

Ogletree Deakins’ lawyers regularly participate in firm-sponsored conferences and seminars hosted by the National Employment Law Council (NELC), the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA), the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL), the Association of Law Firm Diversity Professionals (ALFDP), and Corporate Counsel Women of Color (CCWC).

An Ogletree Deakins lawyer also serves as the editor of the Diversity Table, an award-winning survey analyzing the demographics of top firms in the United Kingdom.

In addition, Ogletree Deakins partners with its clients in the area of diversity and inclusion by inviting clients to attend events hosted by many of the above mentioned organizations. The firm also provides counseling and offers on-site and remote training to create and support in-house diversity and inclusion efforts. 

Throughout the firm, lawyers of diverse backgrounds, gender, sexual orientation, race, and physical ability have positions of responsibility.  This includes lawyers who hold positions as Managing Shareholders in our offices and 20% of our Board of Directors are diverse.

Ogletree Deakins’ commitment to diversity and inclusion has won broad recognition. In 2012 MultiCultural Law Magazine ranked Ogletree Deakins as follows:

 • #53 in the Top 100 Law Firms for Diversity and Inclusion
 • #39 in the Top 50 Law Firms for Partners
 • #4 in the Top 100 Law Firms for Women
 • #2 in the Top 25 Law Firms for African-Americans

The firm also has a five-member dedicated Professional Development and Inclusion Department (PD&I), whose primary focus is to establish and monitor programming and initiatives that will sustain productive and all-inclusive work-environment in every office location. This team is led by the by a Director of Professional Development and Inclusion, who is part of the senior management team and reports directly to the Managing Shareholder and the Board of Directors.

There is also a twelve-member Diversity and Inclusion Steering Committee that guides the firm in creating programming and initiatives to recruit, hire, retain, promote and advance lawyers within the firm.

To conclude, Ogletree Deakins believes that diversity and inclusion are integral to the firm’s outstanding performance and premier client service. The firm’s top-talented, vibrant workforce reflects the growing diversity of our communities and clients and contributes unique perspectives and creative approaches. This, in turn, generates the highest quality of service, propels outstanding business results, and serves the needs of our clients and the communities in which we live and work.
 

  1. Vendor Management

    • Does the firm have preferred vendor relationships? Yes

  2. Quality Management

    • Does the firm conduct end of matter reviews? Yes

  3. Litigation General Best Practices

    • Does the firm have a formalized new associate litigation training/mentoring program? Yes
    • Does the firm's litigation department have a structured approach to early case assessment? For example: Does your firm implement a standard approach to determine risks and strengths early in a case to assess trial or settlement options? Yes
    • Does the firm have an established records management team to assist clients with records retention, compliance and litigation preparedness? Yes

  4. Litigation eDiscovery Best Practices

    • Does the firm have an established eDiscovery Committee? Yes
    • Does your firm have any educational programs designed to address the changing federal rules of civil procedure? Yes
    • Does the firm have a standardized litigation hold program in place for its clients? Yes
    • Does your firm have a standardized protocol to guide client data collection? (i.e. Maintaining chain of custody, utilizing forensically sound procedures) Yes
    • Does the firm have a standardized protocol to guide processing clients' edata? (i.e. all data produced in PDF, meta data preserved?) Yes
    • Does the firm have a standardized approach for document reviews across practice groups (i.e. established protocol for eDiscovery review depending on the needs of the case) Yes

  5. Matter Budgeting and Financial Management

    • Does the firm establish formal budgets for client engagements? Yes
    • Are bills submitted electronically? Yes

  6. Knowledge Management

    • Does the firm have a knowledge management program? No

  7. Disaster Recovery

    • Does the firm have a disaster recovery plan in place? Yes

  8. Number of Partners who are...

    • Non-minority Males 210
    • Minority Males 19
    • Non-minority Females 68
    • Minority Females 9

  9. Number of Associates who are...

    • Non-minority Males 64
    • Minority Males 16
    • Non-minority Females 92
    • Minority Females 29

  10. Number of Of Counsel who are...

    • Non-minority Males 34
    • Minority Males 7
    • Non-minority Females 38
    • Minority Females 11

  11. Number of Paralegals who are...

    • Non-minority Males 9
    • Minority Males 4
    • Non-minority Females 56
    • Minority Females 11

  12. Number of Marketing Professionals who are...

    • Non-minority Males 6
    • Minority Males 3
    • Non-minority Females 9
    • Minority Females 2

  13. Number of Technology Professionals who are...

    • Non-minority Males 22
    • Minority Males 6
    • Non-minority Females 9
    • Minority Females 2

  14. Number of Librarians who are...

    • Non-minority Males 3
    • Minority Males 1
    • Non-minority Females 7

  15. Number of Finance Professionals who are...

    • Non-minority Males 1
    • Non-minority Females 16
    • Minority Females 1

  16. Number of Administrative Professionals who are...

    • Non-minority Males 11
    • Minority Males 10
    • Non-minority Females 229
    • Minority Females 74

  17. Number of Human Resources Professionals who are...

    • Non-minority Females 4

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