Sidney M. Wolinsky

Berkeley

Practice type: Litigation

Specialty: Disability law

When Wolinsky decided to take on the New York City subway system over its lack of access for wheelchair users, he received one particularly callous response from a transit authority employee: at least they get a seat.

The city had already completed designs to overhaul its heavily used Dyckman Street Station but had not included an elevator, despite being required to under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Through Wolinsky's efforts, the Metropolitan Transit Authority agency agreed to spend $4 million on a station elevator.

With an estimated 60,000 wheelchair users in the city, the settlement was an obvious victory. Yet it is still only a drop in the bucket, according to Wolinsky, when it comes to making the country's most populous city accessible for people with disabilities.

After receiving inquiries from New York City organizations wanting help with access problems, Wolinsky's Berkeley-based Disability Rights Advocates set up an office there a little over a year ago.

Wolinsky is presently involved in litigation against the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission over wheelchair accessibility for its huge fleet. After years of using the Ford Crown Victoria, the commission selected a Nissan van as its new designated taxi vehicle. Like its predecessor, the van is not wheelchair accessible.

"A lot of it is stuff we put to rest 15 years ago in the Bay Area," he said.

That's not to say that Disability Rights Advocates' director of litigation hasn't been plenty busy on the West Coast as well.

Wolinsky was lead counsel in a lawsuit against Cinemark Holdings Inc., the nation's third largest movie theater chain, over its lack of captioning for deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons.

The case was resolved through arbitration in April with Cinemark agreeing to outfit all of its first-run movie theaters with closed-captioning devices by July. The Association of Late-Deafened Adults et al. v. Cinemark Holdings Inc. et al., CV 11-0366 (Alameda County Superior Court, filed Nov. 30, 2010).

- Amy Yarbrough