A special edition of the Innovating Inclusion podcast where Civil Rights Attorneys Jessie Weber and Paul Grossman unpack the ADA and Section 504, Title II, and tell us how it all relates to Roy Payan, Portia Mason, and the National Federation of the Blind in their case against the Los Angeles Community College District.

BIOS

For over 30 years, PAUL GROSSMAN served as the Chief Regional Attorney for the US Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in San Francisco. In Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, Paul has worked on every type of education discrimination matter under Title VI, Title IX, Section 504, and the ADA, including securing equal access and academic accommodations for students with disabilities in higher education. For nearly 20 years, Paul also had lead responsibility for internal disability law training for OCR and continues to provide training services for OCR.

For over 20 years, Paul was an Adjunct Professor of Disability Law at Hasting College of Law, University of California, one of many law schools that use the textbook he publishes with Distinguished Professor, Ruth Colker. Paul is a much sought-after keynote speaker at education and law conferences, including the University of California, Berkeley School of Law; Harvard Graduate School of Education; the Association for Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) and its regional chapters; the National Association of ADA Coordinators (NAADAC); and Children and Adults with AD/HD (CHADD). Paul also provides consulting services to institutions of higher education (Grossman and Vance, Beyond the ADA). For five years, Paul was also a member of the Board of Directors for AHEAD and remains a member of the Public Policy Committees of CHADD and AHEAD as well as a faculty member for NAADAC.

Paul is an individual with several disabilities including dyslexia and diabetes.

JESSIE WEBER enjoys helping clients navigate a diverse range of difficult legal issues, with a focus on civil rights, including disability and LGBTQ rights, employment law, including wage and hour cases, and appellate litigation. Jessie’s successes include obtaining a $1.25 million settlement for a class of Baltimore City school bus drivers and attendants wrongly denied their full pay, securing an injunction requiring the Maryland Board of Elections to make absentee voting accessible to voters with print disabilities, and winning an arbitration award of more than $250,000 on behalf of an African-American former Hooters server who was fired from her job because of Hooters’ racially discriminatory image policy.

Jessie is an experienced appellate litigator. She has argued before the Fourth, Sixth, Ninth, and D.C. Circuit Courts of Appeals and has also submitted briefs in the United States Supreme Court, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and in state appellate courts in Maryland and Washington State. She is known for her groundbreaking work obtaining equal access for individuals with disabilities to voting, websites, and government information and services. Jessie is well versed in both complex litigation and negotiations and enjoys using a range of tools to obtain justice for her clients.

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