Date: June 26, 2026
From: The complainant
To: ADA Coordinator John Shiptenko (johns@gabar.org)
To / Cc: General Counsel Russell D. Willard; Deputy General Counsel William D. NeSmith III; Deputy General Counsel Andreea Morrison; Assistant General Counsel Leigh Burgess; Grievance Counsel Adrienne Nash; Chief Operating Officer Sarah Coole; HR Director Sandra Dixon; Executive Director Damon Elmore; Governmental Affairs Director Jennifer McNeely; President Christopher P. Twyman; Immediate Past President Ivy N. Cadle.
Subject: 42 Days of Silence – 2 Tiered System of Grievances – State Bar of Georgia
Attachments: Outstanding matters table (as of June 26, 2026).
Transcript (redacted):
John,
On June 18 you replied to the grievance I filed against you the day before. One word. “Received.”
There are two tracks here, and they do not move at the same speed. A grievance against a practicing lawyer gets a case number, a reviewer, and a written decision. A grievance against a lawyer who works inside this office, or against a former member of this Bar’s own Board, has gotten none of it. Forty-two days. No number. No reviewer. No answer or denial.
I am asking the people copied here to name the rule under which a complaint against a Bar insider sits for forty-two days with no file opened, while a complaint against an ordinary lawyer is given a number and decided.
The speed is not the only problem. When I filed a grievance against you, you are the one who acknowledged it. The lawyer named in the complaint handled the complaint. Where is the wall. Who in this office is screened off from the matters in which they are named.
I have been waiting since January. Every one of these letters is written with voice software because I cannot use my hand. Today, after all of that, the Bar found one word.
I am the one paying for the Bar’s mistakes, non-answers, missed updates, and failure to provide basic ADA access measures. That includes the failure to provide a single point of contact and the decision to leave me managing fourteen separate email addresses just to follow a process the Bar controls.
The table does not show confusion. It shows disparity.
[redacted – signature block and accessibility notice removed]
What this shows: The complainant documented, in the Bar’s own dates, that a grievance against a Bar insider had sat 42 days with no case number, reviewer, or response, while a grievance against an outside lawyer received a number and a written decision. Read receipts show the Deputy General Counsel, the President, and the Chief Operating Officer opened this email within 45 minutes; none replied.
What this does not show: This is the complainant’s own email; it contains no Bar response to the matters raised.