Rob Duston

Rob’s counseling draws on his personal experience with children and adults with disabilities and managing a major church building project. For 30+ years Rob has advised on many types of disability discrimination and accessibility questions and complaints. Rob understands how accessible design and construction, accommodations and civil rights issues intersect and create compliance challenges for businesses and schools. For example, Rob has: 

• Counseled on and defended numerous customer, client, patient, student, and other accommodation requests, including the customer who wanted a store to modify its practices and provide home delivery of beer. 
• Counseled and defended numerous entities on requests from customers, students and tenants related to service and assistance animals or denial of service, including a ferret that was stealing from a roommate and what to do when a miniature horse enters a bar. 
• Successfully petitioned the U.S. Department of Justice and Access Board for the first and only suspension of ADA Standards in 1994 – detectable warnings at hazardous vehicular areas – on behalf of an association of big box retailers. 
• Defended many Department of Justice ADA Title III and FHA investigations and lawsuits, including nationwide pattern and practice claims against a chain of gas stations. 
• Assisted major universities and corporations on website and digital accessibility, including online courses. 
  
   

Rob’s first legal job was as a law clerk in the University of Virginia Office of Legal Counsel. He has acted as outside general counsel to smaller colleges and advised hundreds of colleges and universities and private K-12 schools on ADA/Section 504, employment and other civil rights matters; student affairs, academic conduct, due process and First Amendment matters; affirmative action and diversity programs; and students and faculty with physical and psychological disabilities. For more than 25 years, Rob has represented national and local apprenticeship programs on their classroom and on-the-job operations, standards and other compliance issues.  For example, Rob has: 

• Successfully defended claims of race, gender and national origin discrimination by an African-American female department chair against her black, African-born male dean. 
• Helped navigate complex ADA/FMLA/Workers' Compensation/long-term disability situations, including a tenured professor whose illness was triggered by claims of sexual harassment by students and the resulting investigation. 
• Advised a major private university on civil rights compliance issues in supplier diversity issues. 
  
   

.Rob spent several years as acting managing partner of a boutique law firm and oversaw its merger, and he served as board chair for a non-profit. Rob understands the challenges that general counsel face with discharge issues and allegations of harassment and discrimination, and in his various roles he has handled employee terminations, including some for clients. This practical background contributes to his ability to reduce complex issues into compelling stories for training, negotiations, and litigation. Rob:  

• Obtained summary judgment in an ADA case by a home improvement store employee who claimed he needed a transfer to a different location because he was allergic to the state of Maryland. 
• Successfully defended claims of sexual harassment against a company president by proving that the employee had essentially two personalities – one that was sexually aggressive and one that was offended. 
• Successfully defended claims of religious discrimination against a retailer, whose owners were Jewish, from a long-time salesperson who said he could no longer work Saturdays because he had become Orthodox. 
• Successfully resolved in mediation threatened claims of age discrimination against a boutique law firm by the first equity partner it had ever terminated. 
• Obtained summary judgment and successfully defended on appeal claims of wrongful discharge by an employee who was fired for borrowing money from a subordinate and lying about it; the employee claimed the real reason for his termination was his refusal to inflate a performance review of his supervisor's alleged girlfriend.