A DISABLED DAD’S ADA MATTERS
Georgia on My Mind
STATE BAR OF GEORGIACITY OF BROOKHAVENGIRMA / GALLAGHER BASSETT

EMAIL SENT · 2026-05-15

Redacted State Bar of Georgia email, sent 2026-05-15: The Bar's Own Words, May 4 to 14, 2026
Read the text transcript
Please see the attached complaint that I filed through the grievance system just now. Please expect a 2nd complaint to be filed shortly. I tried to facilitate this privately but have been refused any single point of contact by the Ga Bar.

██████



________________________________
From: Bill NeSmith <██████████████>
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2026 11:05 AM
To: ██████ ███████ <██████████████>
Subject: RE: [External] Grievance No. ██████-█████ — Post-Cure Record: The Bar’s Own Words, the Silence After, and the Question That Remains


Mr. ███████:

I am writing as counsel for the State Bar of Georgia in response to your May 14, 2026, correspondence. The State Bar of Georgia disputes your factual assertions, characterizations, and legal conclusions. This includes your allegations of misconduct, institutional impropriety, procedural invalidity, ADA violations, and purported “leadership” or “oversight” failures. Your correspondence contains substantial speculation, hyperbole, and incorrect factual assertions with which the State Bar does not agree.

The State Bar likewise rejects your characterization of ordinary administrative communications, scheduling issues, and internal correspondence practices as evidence of misconduct, bad faith, retaliation, or coordinated institutional action. No inference of wrongdoing should be drawn from these routine administrative matters.

You have now expressly threatened litigation against the State Bar of Georgia and associated persons and have demanded information regarding insurance and liability coverage. Under these circumstances, the State Bar of Georgia will not engage in further substantive correspondence with you concerning your threatened claims or the allegations set forth in your recent communications outside formal legal process.

Accordingly, any further substantive communications with the State Bar of Georgia or its personnel, officers, Executive Committee members, or Board of Governors members concerning your threatened claims, legal allegations, additional requests for insurance or liability coverage information, or related contested matters should be directed exclusively through your attorney. The State Bar of Georgia, its personnel, officers, Executive Committee members, and Board of Governors members will respond only through counsel to any attorney who formally appears on your behalf, or directly to you only if you elect to initiate litigation pro se. Should you elect to proceed pro se, all such communication should be addressed to me. This limitation does not apply to correspondence related specifically to a requested accommodation, or that provides additional evidence or other information directly related to the Office of the General Counsel’s consideration of your request for reconsideration, the directions for which have been communicated to you previously and are reiterated below. No other substantive response or correspondence concerning such matters should be expected outside formal legal process.

Nothing in this correspondence should be construed as an admission, waiver, concession, or agreement regarding any factual allegation, legal contention, jurisdictional issue, immunity, privilege, accommodation issue, or procedural matter. All rights, defenses, objections, privileges, immunities, and legal positions of the State Bar of Georgia and any affiliated individuals or entities are expressly reserved.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, the State Bar of Georgia will continue to provide reasonable accommodations in its communications and processes, as appropriate and necessary, and the Office of the General Counsel will continue to review and make a determination on your request for reconsideration of your submitted grievance in accordance with any granted accommodations. Requests for accommodations should continue to be directed to Mr. Shiptenko, and any additional evidence or other information directly related to the Office of the General Counsel’s review of your request for reconsideration should be directed to Ms. Nash.

However, accommodation-related or reconsideration-related communications do not alter the State Bar’s position that it will not engage in substantive discussions regarding threatened claims, contested matters, or legal allegations outside the formal legal process. Mr. Shiptenko will respond appropriately to any request for accommodation. Ms. Nash may respond to any submission of evidence or other information directly related to the review of your reconsideration request as appropriate. Still, you should not expect any response to correspondence sent to her that does not contain either evidence or information directly related to the requested reconsideration. Still, any obligation will be limited to a simple acknowledgment of the receipt of the submission unless you have a question as to the manner of submitting any additional evidence or other information directly related to the reconsideration.

Separate and apart from your threatened litigation and the issues set forth above, grievance counsel assigned to your request for reconsideration will communicate with you upon completion, in accordance with any granted accommodations, of the reconsideration review of your grievance against Mr. ███████.



With best regards,



William D. NeSmith, III | Deputy General Counsel



[cid:image001.png@01DCE45A.4EDDCAA0]



104 Marietta Street NW, Suite 100 | Atlanta, GA 30303

404-527-8728 | ██████████████<mailto:██████████████>

________________________________







From: ██████ ███████ <██████████████>
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2026 6:27 PM
To: Russ Willard <██████████████>; Christopher P. Twyman, President <██████████████>
Cc: Bill NeSmith <██████████████>; Leigh Burgess <██████████████>; Andreea Morrison <██████████████>; Adrienne Nash <██████████████>; John Shiptenko <██████████████>; ██████ ███████ <██████████████>
Subject: [External] Grievance No. ██████-█████ — Post-Cure Record: The Bar’s Own Words, the Silence After, and the Question That Remains
Importance: High



Mr. Willard, President Twyman, and all Bar staff copied here:

The cure window established in my May 11 letter closed today, May 14, 2026, at 5:00 PM ET. Twenty-eight items were identified. Four violations were documented. Zero items have been cured.

I sent the executive summary to Mr. Willard and President Twyman earlier today. This email goes to the full institutional distribution because everyone on this thread deserves to see the same record, and because I genuinely cannot figure out what is happening inside your institution.

I am asking this as plainly as I can: is the Bar experiencing internal disagreement, a leadership vacuum, or a deliberate good-cop/bad-cop strategy directed at a disabled complainant and the regulators monitoring this record?

Because from where I sit, no reasonable person could make sense of what happened this week. I have a disability. I am not stupid. And what I watched happen over the past ten days does not add up.

In the Past 24 Hours Alone, the Bar Has Misled Me Five Times

#

Date / Time

What Was Said

What Actually Happened

1

May 12, 6:37 PM

“I am available at 11.30 only.”

Implied a meeting would happen

2

May 13, 7:34 AM

“The 11:30 time was meant for a colleague.”

Meeting never existed

3

May 13, 12:41 PM

“I am continuing to review your correspondence.”

Implied response coming

4

May 13, 1:29 PM

“I won’t be able to respond to your two emails until tomorrow.”

Explicit commitment to May 14

5

May 14



“Tomorrow” came and went. No response.

Five representations in 24 hours. A meeting that was never real. A review that produced nothing. A “tomorrow” that did not arrive. Each one bought time. None produced a substantive response.

That is not dysfunction. That is a failure of professional obligations by the Bar’s own lawyers — and a failure to make reasonable efforts to ensure other lawyers conform to the Rules of Professional Conduct. This is simply unbelievable considering what I am currently dealing with between my health and ███████’s. It is nothing anyone would tolerate from the Bar if it involved their disabled friends or family.

The Scoreboard

Date

From

What They Said

Position

May 4

Shiptenko

“The State Bar wants to ensure that you have the same access to the process as any other complainant.”

ADA applies

May 5

Burgess

Answered operational questions professionally. Nash handling reconsideration.

Engaged

May 7

Shiptenko

Point-by-point ADA response. Spoke with State ADA Coordinator.

ADA applies

May 12

NeSmith

“The State Bar is not a public entity subject to the ADA.” “It does not appear that you require assistance.” “Your invocation of the ADA process may be directed… toward securing a particular substantive outcome.”

ADA denied

May 12

NeSmith

“I am available at 11.30 only.”

Meeting offered

May 13 7:34 AM

NeSmith

“The 11:30 time was meant for a colleague of mine and was sent to you in error.”

Meeting cancelled

May 13 12:08 PM

Shiptenko

“The State Bar has approved your accommodation request.”

ADA applies

May 13 12:41 PM

NeSmith

“Mistakes do happen.”

Partial CC restored

May 13 1:29 PM

NeSmith

“I have a doctor’s appointment at 2:00 p.m. today, so I won’t be able to respond to your two emails until tomorrow.”

Response delayed

May 14

NeSmith



No response. “Tomorrow” came and went.

The CC-Stripping Pattern

Date

From

Who Was On

Who Was Stripped

May 12 2:12 PM

NeSmith

Me only

Everyone — Willard, Twyman, Shiptenko, Nash, Burgess, Morrison, State ADA

May 12 6:37 PM

NeSmith

Me only

Everyone

May 13 7:34 AM

NeSmith

Me only

Everyone

May 13 12:08 PM

Shiptenko

NeSmith only

Willard, Twyman, Nash, Burgess, Morrison, State ADA

May 13 12:41 PM

NeSmith

Internal Bar restored

State ADA Coordinator stripped

May 13 1:29 PM

NeSmith

Me only

Everyone

Six emails. The State ADA Coordinator’s Office was stripped from every single one. Three officials, same exclusion, same 24-hour window. The one external oversight body watching this process was removed from the conversation by the people being watched.

The Silence

Official

Emails Sent May 4–14

Substantive Content

Shiptenko

3

Accommodations offered, granted, engaged

NeSmith

5

ADA denial, phantom meeting, “mistakes happen,” doctor delay, then silence

Burgess

1

Operational, professional

Morrison

0

Read receipts only (reading at 1 AM)

Willard

0

Zero

Nash

0

Zero

Twyman

0

Read receipts only

Seven officials. Two engaged. One denied. Four silent. Yesterday I was getting play-by-play updates from multiple officials. Today — the day the cure window closed — silence.

The Contradiction That No One Has Explained

May 13, 12:08 PM — Shiptenko: “The State Bar has approved your accommodation request.”

May 12, 2:12 PM — NeSmith (less than 24 hours earlier): “The State Bar is not a public entity subject to the ADA.”

One official grants accommodations under the ADA framework. Another official denies the Bar is subject to the ADA. Both said it in writing. Both are on the record. No one at the Bar has reconciled these two positions.

On the same day, the Georgia State ADA Coordinator’s Office responded on the full institutional CC list, confirmed the Bar’s ADA obligations for its “programs, services, and activities,” and confirmed she had contacted the Bar directly. That office treated the matter as legitimate. The Bar stripped that office from every response sent the same day.

Where This Leaves Me

My surgery has been postponed because I was unable to clear preop requirements. I have thirteen medical appointments between now and the end of the month. I do not have time to decode whether the State Bar of Georgia is experiencing an internal policy disagreement, a leadership failure, or a coordinated strategy to exhaust a disabled complainant into abandoning his “dismissed” grievance.

But I should not have to. A reasonable person — let alone a person with a disability navigating this process with assistive technology — cannot look at the record above and determine who speaks for the Bar, what the Bar’s position is on ADA access, whether the April 10 dismissal stands, or what happens next.

Please identify, in writing:

1. Whose statements reflect the official position of the State Bar of Georgia in this matter.
2. The operative status of the April 10, 2026 dismissal.
3. The terms, scope, and completion timeline of the reconsideration.
4. Whether new or supplementing evidence may be presented, including the February 3 and February 20 submissions the Bar admits were excluded from the file.
5. Who at the Bar is responsible for informing respondent counsel and the ██████████ ██████████████ █████████’s office of the operative status of this matter, given that the April 10 dismissal issued on a record the Bar has admitted was incomplete.

I have exhausted every internal channel this institution offers. I have written to the ADA Coordinator, the Deputy General Counsel, the Assistant General Counsel, the General Counsel, and the President. I have received contradictory answers, solo emails after repeated requests to stop, a phantom meeting invitation, and — on the day the cure window closed — silence.

If the Bar is unable or unwilling to provide a unified written response identifying its institutional position, I will have no choice but to seek assistance from organizations that exist specifically to help disabled individuals navigate institutional access failures — including disability rights advocacy organizations, ADA legal clinics, and media outlets that cover institutional accountability.

I do not want to do that. I have said from the beginning that I would rather resolve this through the processes designed for resolution. But the Bar’s conduct over the past ten days is not just unacceptable. It is baffling. And it is beginning to look less like institutional dysfunction and more like something deliberate.

I hope I am wrong about that. Proving me wrong requires one thing: a written answer to the five questions above, signed by someone authorized to speak for the institution.

The State Bar of Georgia has a President, a General Counsel, and a Board. This matter has been in front of all three since April 21, 2026. The institution’s contradictions on the record are not a staff-level problem. They are a leadership, executive, and oversight problem. That is what your offices exist to handle.

Please respond in writing.

With respect,

██████ ███████
██████████████
██████████████
██████████████<mailto:██████████████> | ██████████████

________________________________

I am a qualified individual with a disability under 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131(2) and 12132, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794, and 28 C.F.R. § 35.130. My status is established by Social Security Administration disability determination and SSDI entitlement, ███████████ medical records documenting limited or no functional use of my dominant hand, and prescribed medication materially affecting stamina, focus, and the capacity to produce written communication.

Accessibility notice: Due to my documented disability, including limited or no functional use of my dominant hand, I use assistive technology and voice-to-text tools to produce written communications. I sincerely appreciate your understanding of this accommodation. If any portion of this correspondence contains a typographical error or is unclear as a result, please do not hesitate to ask and I will gladly clarify. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

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