William David Goren

William Goren is one of the country’s foremost authorities on the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Since 1990, he has been advising on ADA compliance as both an attorney and professor—of which during his time as a full-time academic at various institutions in Chicago, he won numerous teaching awards and achieved tenure.

With the goal of making the ADA/Rehabilitation Act and related laws understandable so that employers, governmental entities, businesses, and even individuals understand what it means to comply with the ADA/Rehabilitation Act and related laws (related laws include, among others, the Air Carrier Access Act, the Fair Housing Act, and constitutional law), Mr. Goren provides consulting, counseling, representation, and training services12 to higher education institutions, public and private corporations, non-profit organizations, professional sports teams, government entities, and individuals. His approach favors prevention as a safeguard to costly litigation. Mr. Goren is also a FINRA arbitrator and a member of the Employment Arbitration Panel for CPR International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution13.

A licensed attorney in Georgia, Illinois and Texas, Mr. Goren also brings a deep, personal understanding of what it means to have a disability, equipping him with exceptional insight on how the ADA actually works. He is deaf with a congenital bilateral hearing loss of 65–90+ decibels, but functions entirely in the hearing world thanks to hearing aids and lip-reading. For reasons unrelated to his deafness, he uses voice dictation technology to access the computer.

Mr. Goren is the author of Understanding the Americans with Disabilities Act,14 Fourth Edition (published by the American Bar Association, 2013). A prolific writer and researcher, Mr. Goren has penned numerous other articles on the rights of persons with disabilities and publishes the Understanding the ADA blog — an ABA Top 100 Legal Blawg five consecutive years — which discusses current topics relating to complying with the ADA and related

Mr. Goren has always been very involved in bar activities, including but not limited to: founder, founding member, and was the first president of the National Association of Attorneys with Disabilities (NAAD); the Federal Bar Association Diversity Task Force; American Bar Association’s Law Practice Management Section and its: client and marketing development committee, knowledge, strategy and productivity committee, and the legal technology resource center board; and the DeKalb County Bar Association. Previously, Mr. Goren has served on the Illinois Standing Committee on Disability Law, the Texas Bar Standing Committee on Disability Issues Committee, and was a co-chair of the Civil Rights/Constitutional Law committee of the Chicago Bar Association.

Mr. Goren received his B.A. from Vassar College, his J.D. from the University of San Diego, and his LL.M. in Health Law from DePaul University.

Mr. Goren resides in Decatur, Georgia with his wife and daughter. In his spare time, he is a voracious reader and loves sports.