Michael W. Bien

Bien, the managing and co-founding partner of Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP, said his firm looks for cases in which the attorneys can effect social and institutional change. Though the firm is known for work in the criminal justice system and in disability law, Bien said theirs isn’t merely subject matter expertise, but expertise in negotiation.

The firm recently accepted the invitation of the American Civil Liberties Union to get involved with a suit against the state of Nebraska for prison overcrowding and mental health disability issues. The firm also worked on a disability rights case against Uber, whose drivers were accused of often not picking up visually impaired people with service dogs.

“I think we’re looking for places where we can bring that expertise of achieving some social change on an issue, and I think that’s what we can do well,” Bien said. “For a criminal justice agency, it’s in their interest to treat prisoners humanely. Prisoners get better care, and the prison will function more smoothly, with less violence.”

In both cases, the goal isn’t just to get a settlement, or just to get a signed piece of paper that says, “We’re going to fix the problem,” Bien said. “That’s almost worthless. You need something where there’s reporting, enforcement.” With Uber, the firm now has a role in monitoring and enforcing the terms of the settlement, and making sure it works.

“That’s the kind of case we’re looking for. In Nebraska, we’re not looking for damages — we want to make the prisons humane and comply with the law. Same as Uber.”

With the Uber suit, the goal wasn’t to put the company out of business, Bien said, but to make its services more accessible to more users. For the blind community, Bien said, ride-hailing services are a blessing, but not when they leave people with service dogs on the street.

Uber’s initial position was that the Americans with Disabilities Act didn’t apply to them, because they weren’t a transportation company, they were an app. The court held that the ADA does apply to Uber. “Exactly how it applies, we negotiated with them, and didn’t litigate every issue,” Bien said. “We were eventually able to work out a settlement that took into account their business model. We didn’t care if the drivers were employees or not — we just wanted them trained and supervised, and if people violate policy, remove them.”

Once the firm successfully reached a settlement with Uber, they approached Lyft to ask for similar changes without even filing suit.

Bien said with Lyft, they used structured negotiation, explaining that both sides could save time and money by avoiding a suit if Lyft was willing to take the matter seriously and adhere to a set of negotiating principles. Bien described the approach as “a combination of carrots and sticks.”

Key to his success, Bien said, is learning to be flexible and communicate with people on the other side of the table. “It’s about learning not to make them be enemies but saying, ‘We have a problem here, let’s try to come to some agreement about how to fix it.”

— L.J. Williamson