[blindlaw] Request: Your Comments

[Norman, Gary C. (CMS/OSORA)]

Greetings:




The Mid-Atlantic Lyceum, an organization headquartered in Maryland and that is dedicated to bringing people together for improve dialogue and public policy formulation, is seeking your prompt comments. The organization, whose motto is -Aio, is exploring a range of ways to bring multiple party stakeholders together to address various sorts of inaccessibility issues. A chief project of the Lyceum is its Mid-Atlantic Journal on Law and Public Policy that accepts article proposals on a rolling basis. A series of dinner forums, entitled the Repast and Repartee Series, will occur at various points in 2013. In addition, the Lyceum has an animal law focus. A couple of question are propounded below.


Accessibility
To this end, it has been suggested that there might be interest in a "sector" by sector approach to hosting some conferences in which multi-party stakeholders meet to address various access issues of people with disabilities. For instance, as you are aware, the accessibility of the Digital Age is an issue area of greatest concern to the disabled, particularly those who are sensory disabled. Notably, the co-founders of the Lyceum, Joshua L. Friedman, Esq. and Gary C. Norman, Esq. L.L.M. will have a ground breaking law review article published as part of the symposium edition to the 2012 N.F.B. symposium that addresses the issue of the inaccessibility of the Digital Age. Should a sector by sector approach make sense, then a possible starting point is that of banking as all Americans utilize the banks for regular transactions.

As such, do provide your thoughts as to:


In Maryland, what is a bank or a bank, part of a chain, that has an accessible website or accessible Internet presence?


Animals
With the Lyceum having an animal law focus, do respond to:

Would it make sense to attempt to insert mediation into animal law cases as early as possible, if not at least at the level of county or jurisdictional hearing boards? If so, who are the stakeholders that need to be brought to the table for a training and action plan? Further, is community mediation doing much in terms of animal cases already?


Your comments will help the board of the Lyceum determine the feasibility of a project. In conclusion, do not hesitate to telephone me at (410) 241-6745.