Date: June 17, 2026, 3:48 PM ET
From: The complainant
To / Cc: To ADA Coordinator John Shiptenko (johns@gabar.org). Cc Deputy General Counsel William D. NeSmith III; Grievance Counsel Adrienne Nash; Deputy General Counsel Andreea N. Morrison; Assistant General Counsel Leigh Burgess; General Counsel Russell D. Willard; Chief Operating Officer Sarah I. Coole; Executive Director Damon E. Elmore; Human Resources Director Sandra Dixon; Governmental Affairs Director Jennifer McNeely; Ron Turner; Marie Doyrin; William C. Gentry; President Christopher P. Twyman; R. Javoyne Hicks; Shiriki Cavitt Jones; Immediate Past President Ivy N. Cadle.
Subject: State Bar of Georgia: Outstanding ADA Compliance Issues and Unanswered Questions
Attachments: One combined PDF, 11 pages, with the Bar’s own words highlighted.
Transcript (redacted):
Mr. Shiptenko,
Thank you for the update.
You attached the current grievance form and told me I may mail it or email it to Ms. Nash.
That does not solve the access problem. It repeats it.
The form you attached is the same form I identified to the Bar more than a month ago as part of the problem. It is not a fillable form that works with my voice to text workflow. I use assistive technology because I have limited functional use of both hands. A form that still requires printing, handwriting, scanning, or workaround formatting is not an accessible written process.
The Spanish grievance form tells a person with a disability to contact the ADA Coordinator for help in the complaint process. The current English form does not give that notice. It does not identify an ADA Coordinator. It does not provide a written ADA filing route. It does not explain how a disabled person using assistive technology is supposed to file without the portal, without a CAPTCHA, and without a phone call.
So the Bar’s answer cannot be: use the form. The form is part of the problem.
You also again removed the broader distribution I had included. I have restored it.
That is part of the problem too. The Bar keeps talking through me, narrowing the room, splitting one matter among different people, and leaving me to work out who is reading, who is responsible, and who can answer.
I do not have this experience with any other office involved in this matter. Other offices answer directly. They give timelines. They tell me what happens next. They do not make me chase people just to learn whether my filing exists.
On May 14, the State ADA Coordinator’s Office answered me the same day. The office thanked me, said its team strives to provide excellent customer service, technical guidance, and support, and invited me to send questions or comments.
On June 16, another state agency handling a related complaint gave me a clear answer. It told me the company had fifteen business days to respond, that the response would be processed in the order received, that it could take several weeks, and it ended by saying, “I look forward to assisting you with your complaint.”
That is what normal communication looks like.
It did not require guessing who was responsible. It did not blame me for needing written communication. It did not send me back a defective form I had already identified as part of the access problem. It answered the question.
Only the Bar does this.
[redacted – outside the scope of this record] The Bar lost part of the record. The Bar dismissed the grievance without it. And the Bar still cannot tell me who is reviewing the correction, what standard applies, whether the dismissal still stands, or when a decision should be expected.
The Bar should be more troubled by this than I am. This is the institution that tells the public it handles lawyer discipline and protects the integrity of the profession. Received submissions vanished from one of its files, and the finding that resulted said no rebuttal was received. An institution that can lose a disabled person’s submissions, dismiss the grievance on an incomplete record, and then treat the back of the line as the cure should be asking whether it is meeting that responsibility before I do. Losing the file is not a clerical event. Putting the corrected file at the back of the line is not a fix.
I need to be direct. I get nothing from this. I did not file this grievance for money. I did not file it for special treatment. I did not file it because I wanted to spend months fighting the State Bar of Georgia. I filed it because I believed the Bar should look at the record. Then the Bar left my received submissions out of the file, dismissed the grievance without them, admitted the submissions were received and missing, and still has not corrected the dismissal. I spent my own money to fix the Bar’s mistake. I paid for software, filing, printing, mailing, preservation, and help organizing a record I should not have had to rebuild. I did that with limited use of both hands, while dealing with serious medical issues. The Bar has still not said thank you. The Bar has still not said sorry. The Bar has still not corrected the April 10 dismissal. And now the Bar is trying to place the delay on my accommodation.
Here is why that explanation does not work.
1. I never asked for a thirty day postponement of the decision. If the Bar contends I did, identify the email by date and quote the exact language.
2. Your May 4 email offered a postponement only if I requested one, and asked me to provide a date when Ms. Nash could resume review. That is an offer from you, not a request from me. I never asked for a hold, and I never provided a resume date. Your June 16 email now treats May 13 as approval of an accommodation request I never made.
3. Your June 2 email identified the accommodations already granted as written only communication and accessible format documents. A one month postponement of the decision is not on that list.
4. Your June 2 email also stated that you did not read either of my emails as containing a request for additional accommodations. If you did not read my emails as requesting additional accommodations, the Bar cannot now treat a thirty day delay as something I requested.
5. My surgery did not move the Bar’s decision. On May 14, I told the Bar in writing that my surgery had been postponed because I was unable to clear preop requirements. You were copied on that email. That was before the May 15 email cutting off further substantive correspondence, and before your June 10 email referred to recovery from surgery.
6. The June 10 explanation only works if the Bar ignored the May 14 email. Either the Bar read it and knew the May 15 procedure was not the reason to hold the file through June 15, or the Bar did not read it and used my medical timeline anyway. Neither version makes the delay mine.
7. The Bar’s own words tied June 15 to a decision. Your June 10 email said Ms. Nash had postponed issuing a final decision until June 15. Your June 16 email said Ms. Nash postponed making a final determination through June 15. If the Bar now says June 15 was only the date review would resume, the Bar needs to explain why it twice used the language of a final decision.
8. Even read in the Bar’s favor, the result is the same. If June 15 was the decision date, it passed with no decision. If June 15 was only a resume date, the Bar has not said when a decision is expected, what standard applies, who the final decisionmaker is, or whether the April 10 dismissal remains in force.
9. During the same period the Bar now calls an accommodation delay, I was asking the Bar to move. I asked the Bar for the status of this matter on May 7, on May 11, and on May 18. I asked whether my materials were received. I asked whether they were in the file. I asked whether the April 10 dismissal had been withdrawn, vacated, corrected, limited, or left in force. Those were requests for the Bar to fix the file and rule on the case. They were not requests for delay.
10. The original problem remains untouched. The April 10 dismissal stated that no rebuttal was received. The Bar later admitted that my February 3 and February 20 submissions were received, misclassified, and not in the grievance file when the dismissal was reviewed. The file may now be complete. The dismissal still says no rebuttal was received.
11. [redacted – outside the scope of this record]
Words matter. You are an attorney. The Bar cannot write that a final decision was postponed until June 15, then call June 15 a resume date, and then place the delay on a thirty day extension I never requested.
I am also still waiting for answers to basic questions that have nothing to do with the merits of the grievance.
I am still waiting to know who authored, approved, transmitted, or authorized the unsigned Response@gabar.org message that commented on the assistive technology I use to communicate.
I am still waiting for an explanation of Mr. NeSmith’s 11:30 call, which was scheduled with me and then withdrawn as if it had never been mine.
I am still waiting for Ms. Morrison, or someone speaking for the Bar, to explain why the April 10 dismissal she signed has not been corrected after the Bar admitted my submissions were received but were not in the file when the dismissal was reviewed.
[redacted – outside the scope of this record]
I do not expect those answers to suddenly appear. I am putting it plainly in the record because the silence is part of the problem.
Please answer these directly.
1. Where is the email in which I requested a thirty day extension?
2. Who selected June 15?
3. Was June 15 the date through which the decision was held, or only the date review resumed?
4. What is the expected timeframe for a decision now that Ms. Nash has resumed review?
5. What standard is Ms. Nash applying?
6. Who is the final decisionmaker?
7. Does the April 10 dismissal remain in force?
8. Will the Bar correct the April 10 dismissal to state that my February 3 and February 20 submissions were received but were not in the file when the dismissal was reviewed?
9. Will the Bar provide a written filing route for a disabled person using assistive technology that does not require the portal, a CAPTCHA, a phone call, printing, handwriting, scanning, or workaround formatting?
10. Why did the Bar send me the same English grievance form after I had already identified the form itself as part of the access problem?
11. Why does the current English grievance form not identify an ADA Coordinator or a written ADA filing route, when the Spanish form tells a disabled person to contact the ADA Coordinator for help in the complaint process?
12. Who authored, approved, transmitted, or authorized the unsigned Response@gabar.org message that commented on the assistive technology I use?
13. Who was the intended recipient of Mr. NeSmith’s 11:30 call, and why was I told there was no meeting after the call had been scheduled with me?
14. Why has Ms. Morrison, or someone speaking for the Bar, not corrected the April 10 dismissal after the Bar admitted my submissions were received but were not in the file when the dismissal was reviewed?
15. [redacted – outside the scope of this record]
16. [redacted – outside the scope of this record]
17. [redacted – outside the scope of this record]
I am glad Ms. Nash has resumed review. It would mean more if the Bar would say what review means, what standard applies, when a decision is expected, and whether the defective April 10 dismissal still stands.
I am not asking for special treatment. I am asking the Bar to fix the file, correct the dismissal, name the reviewer, name the standard, give me a real timeframe, and give me a written route that actually works.
The April 10 dismissal still says no rebuttal was received. I sent two. The Bar admits it received them and lost them. The institution responsible for lawyer discipline in Georgia has a written finding in its own file that is not true, and it has left it there.
Respectfully,
[redacted]
What this shows: The complainant set out the access problems with the grievance form, contrasted the Bar’s silence with other agencies’ same-week timelines, and asked seventeen written questions about who is reviewing the correction, by what standard, in what timeframe, and whether the April 10 dismissal still stands.
What this does not show: This email does not contain any answer or determination from the Bar; it is the complainant’s own correspondence stating his outstanding questions.