Paul Rein has been litigating access cases on behalf of physically disabled persons for the past 35 years of his 40 years as an attorney, to our knowledge, longer than any other attorney in the United States. He prepared for the turmoil of litigation by winning the middleweight Intercollegiate boxing championship in 1965 and has been working with the Cal Boxing Team for the last 40 years.

Education: Phi Beta Kappa undergraduate degree, University of California at Berkeley, 1965; J.D. Boalt Hall, University of California, Berkeley, 1968. Represented Boalt Hall in 1968 California State Moot Court Championships, team winning the Oral Advocacy competition, second place overall. Admitted to California Bar and all Federal Courts, January 9, 1969. Trial counsel and appellate co-counsel in the three leading California appellate cases upholding use of private lawsuits for public interest injunctive relief to remove architectural barriers and recover damages for physically disabled persons: James Donald v. Sacramento Valley Bank (1989) 209 Cal.App.3d 1183 (3rd District Court of Appeal), James Donald v. Cafe Royale (1990) 218 Cal.App.3d 168, 266 Cal.Rptr. 804 (1st DCA), and Mark Hankins v. El Torito Restaurants, Inc., et al. (1998) 63 Cal.App.4th 510 (1st DCA).

In Mark Hankins v. El Torito Restaurants, supra, we recovered $80,000 damages and $403,000 attorney fees for discrimination against a disabled person who was denied use of both public and "employees’" restrooms, and set important California law legal precedent when the published appellate opinion affirmed the trial court victory. (63 Cal.App.4th 510)

Important precedents were also set by our cases in two published opinions by Northern District Chief Judge Thelton Henderson in Bernard Walker and Christina Adams v. Carnival Cruise Lines, et al., (1999) 63 F.Supp.2d 1083 and (2000) 107 F.Supp.2d 1135, extending ADA coverage to the services of travel agents booking accommodations for disabled persons who request “accessible facilities,” and holding that ADA Title III protected persons physically unable to travel to Miami from being required to bring their ADA actions in Florida, despite the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shute v. Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. (1991) 499 U.S. 585. Settlement in conjunction with a Florida class action (handled by Matthew Dietz, Esq., of Miami) resulted in making accessible all 15 Carnival Cruise Lines ships operated in American waters, and involving the largest cruise line in the world.

In the second Carnival Cruise Lines opinion ((2000) 107 F.Supp.2d 1135, at 1143), the Court encouraged private lawsuits to enforce the ADA and obtain "private attorney general" attorney's fees:

There can be no question that the Americans With Disabilities Act, passed in 1990, established as law the nation’s interest in eradicating the bigotry and barriers faced by individuals with disabilities...The ADA creates the possibility that successful plaintiffs may establish permanent changes in the design and physical configuration of structures to better accommodate the disabled. 42 U.S.C. §12101(a)(5). The benefits of such changes clearly redound not only to the plaintiffs themselves, but to similarly situated disabled persons, and the entire society at large. As a result, plaintiffs or plaintiff classes who bring suit pursuant to the ADA do so in the role of "private attorneys general" who seek to vindicate "a policy of the highest priority."

For example, successful ADA plaintiffs confer a tremendous benefit upon our society at large, in addition to the attainment of redress for their personal individual injuries...[T]he enforcement of civil rights statutes by plaintiffs as private attorneys general is an important part of the underlying policy behind the law. Such a policy ensures an incentive for ‘impecunious’ plaintiffs who can ill afford to litigate their claims against defendants with more resources..."

Celia McGuinness joined our office after 16 years as a trial lawyer and appellate attorney. She was a San Francisco Deputy Public Defender for 8 years, before entering private practice as a criminal defense attorney. She has prepared and/or tried a broad variety of cases in both state and federal court, including her most recent trial involving a complex homicide. She has argued before the California Court of Appeals and the Ninth Circuit.

In addition to her courtroom work, Ms. McGuinness has substantial academic credentials. She has been a Visiting Clinical Professor at the University of San Francisco Law School, and currently teaches "Legal Writing and Research," and "Moot Court," at Hastings College of Law. She has published scholarly works in the Hastings Women's Law Journal and in Interpretation, a journal of political philosophy. She has also published articles in California Lawyer Magazine and the Daily Recorder newspaper.

Ms. McGuinness is a graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, MN, where she won the 1986 Congden Contest for Essays on Nietzsche's Thought. Between college and law school, Ms. McGuinness was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to study the public defender system in Australia. During that experience she co-authored a "Report on Deaths in Custody of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders" for the Minnesota Lawyers International Human Rights Committee, a paper that was presented to the United Nations Subcommittee on Indigenous Peoples on August 5, 1988. She is a 1991 graduate of U.C. Hastings College of the Law, where she won the 1991 statewide California Traynor Moot Court Competition and was named Best Oral Advocate.

Ms. McGuinness understands the daily hurdles that people with disabilities face. A member of her immediate family uses a wheelchair, as well as assistive technology to communicate. This insight strengthens her determination to produce the excellent outcomes her clients deserve, while ensuring permanent changes which will improve access for all disabled people. Her dedication to protecting the rights of disabled persons led her to join the Rein Law Office in 2008, so that she could work full time toward ending discrimination against the disabled in public facilities operated by governmental or commercial entities.

Aaron Clefton, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate from the University of Washington, has six years experience as a paralegal and senior law clerk in the field of civil rights and disability law, and has worked with our firm for four years.

Julie Ostil is a Boalt Hall honors graduate who was elected President of the Boalt Hall Women’s Association (at a law school where women now constitute more than one-half of the student body). Prior to entering law school, Ms. Ostil attended U.C. Berkeley, graduating with Distinction and receiving her B.A. in English. She has several years experience exclusively representing disabled persons with varying disabilities, including representing deaf women who were victims of domestic violence. Ms. Ostil, proficient in American Sign Language, was formerly staff attorney for the Deaf Woman’s Legal Project at the Law Center for Families in Oakland, and worked as part of the Rein Law Office since mid-2003, representing persons with mobility, hearing, and visual disabilities. As of August, 2008, she has opened her own law office, but continues working with Paul Rein on multiple disability discrimination cases. Her office phone number is (925) 265-8257.