What a State Bar ADA Coordinator Is Supposed to Do

Fifty-nine people a quarter search for the State Bar of Georgia’s ADA coordinator. This page explains what that role is under federal regulation, what it is supposed to give you, and what happened when one disabled person tried to use it.

The disclaimer. I am not a lawyer. This is the federal government’s own description of the role, linked to the originals, and then my file next to it.

The role, under the regulation

The ADA Title II regulations at 28 C.F.R. Part 35 set out what a covered public entity of a certain size is expected to have in place. In plain language, three things.

1. A designated person. Someone named, and identified to the public, who is responsible for coordinating the entity’s ADA compliance.
2. Published contact information. The name, office address, and phone number have to be made available to interested people. A coordinator nobody can find is not a coordinator.
3. A published grievance procedure. A written way to complain about a disability access problem with the entity itself, and to get that complaint resolved promptly and fairly.

None of that is exotic. It is the plumbing that makes the rest of Title II usable. Without a named person and a published route, a disabled person is left guessing which mailbox to write to, which is exactly where this record starts.

Sources: ADA Title II Regulations, ADA.gov and ADA Update: A Primer for State and Local Governments.

What the role is supposed to give you in practice

A working ADA coordinator function should be able to answer four questions without you having to fight for them.

• Who are you, and where are you published? A name and a route that exists before I need it.
• What is the timeline? How long until I get a written determination on a request.
• What is the procedure if the process itself is the barrier? Not the underlying matter. The process.
• Is my request granted, denied, or deferred? In writing, so it can be relied on.

Those four are not demands. They are the minimum a person needs in order to plan their week.

What happened when I used it

I use adaptive technology instead of typing because of my disability. I have two rare autoimmune diseases and substantial bilateral hand dysfunction. Every letter in this record was produced with voice software.

On April 30, 2026 I sent a comprehensive ADA accommodation package to the State Bar of Georgia. Here is what the coordinator function actually produced.

It engaged, and that part was real

On May 4, 2026 the Bar’s ADA Coordinator, John J. Shiptenko, sent the first substantive ADA engagement of the matter and granted accommodations in writing, including written communication and accessible electronic formats. On May 13 the Bar approved an accommodation request. I want that on the page, because it happened, and because it is the part that makes everything after it harder to explain.

Then the ground moved

On May 12, 2026 the Deputy General Counsel wrote that the Bar is “not a public entity subject to the ADA” and that it is “not required to have a published ADA Coordinator.” On May 29 the position was that the Bar is “not subject to Title II.”

So the coordinator I was working with was, according to the Bar’s own lawyers, a coordinator the Bar did not have to have, at an institution not covered by the law that creates the role.

Then the accommodations came apart, one at a time

• The recipients were stripped from replies, repeatedly, forcing a man with hand dysfunction to rebuild the distribution list by hand. May 12.
• The correspondence itself was shut down. May 15.
• My role on my own matter was narrowed to “accommodation requests only.” June 2.
• The contact was out of office at escalation points, and the matter was routed elsewhere. June 2.
• The accommodation offered was the voice-to-text software I had already paid thousands of dollars for myself. June 17.
• The accessible route in was the same flagged form, re-sent, CAPTCHA and all. May 26.

An accommodation you cannot rely on is not an accommodation. It is a coupon.

The full granted and taken away record . The ADA Coordinator’s page in this record . Known ADA problems at the Georgia Bar

The questions the role never answered

These went to the General Counsel, the Deputy General Counsel, the Grievance Counsel, and the ADA Coordinator, in writing, most of them more than once.

• Where is the Bar’s published procedure for ADA complaints about the grievance process itself? First asked April 30, 2026. Never answered.
• Who is the ADA contact for problems with how the grievance process works, and where is that person listed publicly? First asked April 30, 2026. Never answered.
• Where can a person with a disability find that contact information on gabar.org? First asked April 30, 2026. Never answered.
• Is there a way to file or communicate that does not require a CAPTCHA or a phone call? First asked May 18, 2026. Never answered.
• When a disabled person sends something in, does a real person confirm it arrived and was placed in the right file? First asked April 30, 2026. Never answered.

On June 30, 2026 the Bar dismissed every grievance, still without answering any of them. All fifteen unanswered questions are here.

What a published coordinator looks like elsewhere

The Florida Bar publishes an accessibility page telling people with disabilities exactly how to request a reasonable accommodation to file a misconduct complaint against an attorney, with named departments and phone numbers. California and North Carolina publish their Bar ADA coordinators by name.

The State Bar of Georgia’s own 2011 English grievance form named the ADA Coordinator and gave two phone numbers, (404) 527-8720 and (800) 334-6865. That form is still hosted on one of the Bar’s section websites. The Spanish grievance form carries the same notice. The current English form does not. On May 26, 2026 the Bar acknowledged the difference in writing.

A capture of the Bar’s public site on May 29, 2026 found published infrastructure for member wellness, senior lawyers, member crisis support, and diversity programming. It found no disability-access route anywhere on the page.

The full comparison

If you are trying to reach an ADA coordinator at a bar or licensing body

What I would do differently, offered as one person’s experience and not as advice.

• Ask for the name and the publication location in the same sentence. “Who is the coordinator, and at what URL is that published.” A name without a public listing tends not to survive a staff change.
• Ask for a written determination with a date, not a conversation. Granted, denied, or deferred, and by when.
• Keep the accommodation request separate from the merits. Mixing them lets an institution answer one and call it both.
• Save the read receipts and delivery confirmations. They are the only part of this that nobody can recharacterise later.
• Use the free federal route in parallel, not afterwards. The routes are here, and they do not require you to finish with the institution first.

The point of the role

An ADA coordinator exists so that a disabled person does not have to become an expert in an institution’s internal structure just to be heard by it. The measure of the role is not whether someone holds the title. It is whether a person who needs it can find them, reach them, and rely on what they say.

Corrections: this page is built from published federal materials and from correspondence I received. If any fact here is incomplete or inaccurate, identify the page, the sentence, and the supporting document, and I will review and correct the record.

I have invited the State Bar of Georgia to identify any inaccuracy on this page. As of the date above, it has identified none.

Frequently asked questions