Date: October 27, 2026, 5:21 PM ET
From: The complainant
To: General Counsel Russell D. Willard, State Bar of Georgia
Cc: State Bar of Georgia officers, staff and Board members on his October 21 email, and ADA Matters
Subject: RE: Response to Correspondence to the State Bar of Georgia
Transcript typed from the native sent message. Names, contact details, a tracking number, medical details and every passage about the family are removed, each marked in brackets. Nothing else is reworded.
Transcript:
Mr. Willard,
You wrote to me once, on October 21, to 24 addresses. It was a reply to my October 7 email titled “Correspondence to State Bar of Georgia: ADA Access.” Your reply changed the subject line and dropped the words “ADA Access.” You used it to question my disability and [removed: family]. This email is about you, my disability and [removed: family]. My separate email today to your ADA Coordinator identifies twelve ADA access and complaint handling issues that remain disputed as of October 27, 2026, including matters closed without the answers I requested; you are copied.
My disability
On May 13, your office wrote to me: “The State Bar has approved your accommodation request.”
On October 21, you called my disability “your claim of being disabled” and “your asserted disability.” In that same sentence, you wrote that every accommodation request I made “was granted.” Your office granted accommodations for a disability you now call a claim.
Between those two dates sits the record. I offered proof of my disability in 16 emails to your office, on 11 different days, from April 20 to October 7. Ten of them say it in the same words: “Supporting documentation is available upon written request and execution of a properly limited HIPAA-compliant authorization.” No one took it. No one asked to see it.
The notice at the bottom of my emails told your office how I communicate. On May 12, it explained that I use assistive technology and voice to text because of [removed: medical detail]. By May 29, the notice instructed recipients to “identify the specific portion at issue and I will clarify in writing” if anything was unclear. On September 14, it expressly requested “written communication by email in an accessible electronic format” as an accommodation. Your October 21 message was a reply to my October 7 ADA access email, which carried that request. You were told what I needed and how to ask for clarification.
Here is what you called a claim:
[removed: medical details]
The Social Security Administration declared me disabled as of August 5, 2022.
This is what you and the State Bar have questioned about my disability, despite being offered proof 16 times, starting with my Social Security disability determination on day one. The offer stands: I will provide my Social Security disability award letter to anyone on this email who asks. Your office never took the proof. Then you called my disability a claim. That is not only against federal protections. It is against the laws of human decency.
Sir, no matter our dispute, I would never wish that kind of treatment on anyone on this email, or question their disabilities. If someone did this to you, your family, your friends or your coworkers, you would not stand idle.
Sir, I am not standing idle anymore.
[removed: family]
You were never serious
I offered three times to meet in person, with you copied, starting with your own Annual Meeting at the Omni Amelia Island in June, a short drive from my home. No one took me up on it. Not once.
I have been involved in over 15,000 real estate transactions without a complaint. I know when the other side is serious about solving a problem. Your office never was.
Your record, Mr. Willard
Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. You took your law degree from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1996. Then you spent 23 years in the Georgia Attorney General’s office. You rose to Section Chief over the group that handled legal matters for the state’s education agencies and the Judicial Branch. Title II covers public entities. You spent a career representing them. How many times in 23 years did Title II cross your desk?
You joined the State Bar on July 1, 2024, and became General Counsel on February 1, 2025. You head the ten lawyer office that handles lawyer discipline. That is the office whose answer was that my rebuttals “were not added to the grievance file.”
Since you became General Counsel, my record has been put into a federal case against the State Bar. I did not put it there. On September 14, a lawyer suing your office filed Mr. NeSmith’s May 12 email to me, which she found on my website, as an exhibit. Two weeks later your lawyers answered in that case that the ADA context of my request had “no relevance.” Then, on October 21, you wrote me the email above.
Look at the timing. You wrote two weeks after my October 7 ADA letter. You wrote one week after your insurer got my claim, after its adjuster spoke to “my contact at the State Bar.” You wrote one day after your insurer opened my claim. Your email did not answer one ADA question. It went after [removed: family] and my disability. I will let the 24 people on your email decide why.
Look at who you sent it to. On May 12, Mr. NeSmith answered my ADA email to your office. I had sent it to eight people, including you and the State ADA Coordinator’s Office. His answer went to me alone. On October 21, you called my disability a claim and [removed: family]. That went to 24 addresses, including the State ADA Coordinator’s Office.
You wrote that the State Bar will “seek any remedies that we are entitled to seek.” Tell me in writing which remedies you mean. Here is the score. Your office approved my accommodations on May 13. Your office put an ADA notice on its grievance forms after I raised them on May 18. Your office admitted on April 21 that my rebuttals “were not added to the grievance file.” My record is in a federal case against the State Bar. You are losing.
What federal law says about people who file ADA complaints
For six months your office has tried to get out of its federal responsibilities under Title II. That effort has now turned into harassment of me. You called my ADA requests “informational demands and other litigation-related threats.” My ADA complaints are protected activity under federal law. Name, in writing, the communication you call a threat.
I have filed ADA complaints with the United States Department of Justice, and in Georgia with the Judicial Council and Administrative Office of the Courts. Here is what federal law says about a person who does that:
“No person shall discriminate against any individual because such individual has opposed any act or practice made unlawful by this chapter or because such individual made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under this chapter.” 42 U.S.C. § 12203(a).
“It shall be unlawful to coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with any individual in the exercise or enjoyment of, or on account of his or her having exercised or enjoyed … any right granted or protected by this chapter.” 42 U.S.C. § 12203(b).
The Department of Justice’s own Title II rule says the same thing, and names public entities directly: “No private or public entity shall coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with any individual in the exercise or enjoyment of … any right granted or protected by the Act or this part.” 28 C.F.R. § 35.134(b).
I filed a Title II complaint with the United States Department of Justice, mailed May 19, 2026, tracking [removed: tracking number]. I have received no acknowledgment.
Every fact I sent your office has a receipt
When I was right, your staff fixed it and no one told me. Every page on adamatters.com invites a correction. Not one has come from your office.
I call for your resignation
As of today, Mr. Willard, I call for your resignation. The Board of Governors needs to decide whether you are the right person to represent the State Bar now.
And I call on the Board of Governors to remove, now, the people who have openly attacked a disabled complainant protected by federal law:
Russell D. Willard, General Counsel. October 21: “your claim of being disabled,” “your asserted disability,” [removed: family]
William D. NeSmith III, Deputy General Counsel. May 12: “it does not appear that you require assistance in preparing written submissions,” and that my “invocation of the ADA process may be directed less toward obtaining accommodation or access assistance and more toward securing a particular substantive outcome regarding the underlying grievance matter.”
Everyone he copied received his October 21 email. Everyone on this email now knows these facts. [removed: family]
You wrote that I “should not expect to hear directly from any State Bar-affiliated personnel regarding anything arising from these seven dismissed grievances or their appropriate disposition.” My ADA complaints are not grievances, and no one has closed them. My granted accommodation is written communication. Name, in writing, the person at the State Bar who will answer my October 9 ADA questions and my June 8 complaint.
Please confirm receipt of this email in writing.
On May 13 your office approved my accommodations. On October 21 you called my disability a claim. [removed: family]
I am not alone. This is not going away.
Respectfully,
[removed: name and contact details] ADA Matters Because All People Matter.
I am a person with a disability. I request written communication by email in an accessible electronic format as a reasonable modification and for effective communication under 28 C.F.R. §§ 35.130(b)(7) and 35.160. I use assistive technology to prepare written communications. I apologize in advance for any typographical or transcription error. If any portion is unclear, please identify the specific portion and I will clarify in writing.
Related story: For the dated context, read Russell D. Willard, State Bar of Georgia: “your claim of being disabled”.