Knowledge
Understanding the ADA, FMLA, PWFA, and the federal requirements that guide workplace accommodation and leave decisions.
You need to know what the law requires.The ADA Decision Lab
Real Cases. Real Decisions.
Weekly Coaching with Rachel Shaw.
Managing workplace accommodations is hard.
Knowing the law isn't the hard part. Knowing what to do when the facts aren't clear is.Â
The ADA Decision Lab is where professionals responsible for workplace accommodations and leave practice working through the real situations that don't come with an obvious answer.
For 20 weeks, bring the questions and cases you're facing now, learn from the situations other professionals are navigating, and strengthen the judgment you'll rely on when the next difficult case lands on your desk.
What You Get Inside the ADA Decision Lab
20 Weekly Live Teaching + Coaching Sessions
This isn't a webinar you watch and forget. Each week, Rachel teaches practical concepts, works through real workplace situations, and helps you strengthen the judgment you need to make difficult ADA, leave, and accommodation decisions with greater competence and confidence.
Live Q&A + Real-Time Coaching
Bring the questions and situations you're actually dealing with. Ask questions, pressure-test your thinking, explore options, and hear Rachel coach through real decisions—including the questions you may not have known to ask.
Dozens of Practical Tools You Can Put to Work
Don't start from a blank page every time. Throughout the Lab, you'll receive samples, templates, scripts, training decks, learning guides, flowcharts, questionnaires, and other practical resources designed to help you do this work in-house.
Tools That Save Time—and Make the Work More Manageable
The administrative mechanics of this work shouldn't consume all of your time and energy. When a tested tool, sample, or script can help, you'll have somewhere to start—so you can spend more of your time on the work that actually requires your judgment.
See How Rachel Thinks Through the Hard Cases
You won't just learn what the law says. You'll see how Rachel separates facts from assumptions, identifies missing information, asks better questions, explores options, navigates competing interests, and determines the next responsible step when there isn't one obvious answer.
Session Recordings + Private Podcast
Can't attend live? Access the sessions afterward, including through your private podcast feed, so you can continue learning on your schedule.
20 SHRM Professional Development Credits
Complete the Lab and earn 20 SHRM professional development credits while building skills you can immediately apply to your work.
THE ADA DECISION LAB
Knowing the Law Is Just the Beginning.
You've taken the training. Read the regulations. Built the processes. Collected the templates.
Then a real case lands on your desk.
The medical information is incomplete. The supervisor disagrees. The employee is frustrated. Operational concerns are real. And there isn't a checklist that tells you exactly what to do next.
That's the work we practice inside the ADA Decision Lab.
Show me what we'll work through
Practical Implementation
Using reliable processes, tools, templates, conversations, and programming so you do not have to reinvent repeatable mechanics every time.
You need practical ways to make the work more organized and manageable.Professional Judgment
Applying what you know when facts are incomplete, reasonable people disagree, and there isn't one obvious answer.
You need to know what to ask, who to involve, when to move forward, and when to pause.A TUESDAY IN THE LAB
WHAT A TUESDAY
LOOKS LIKE
HOW WE PRACTICE THE WORK TOGETHER
STEP 1: LEARN
Rachel starts with practical teaching around a workplace challenge, framework, issue, or decision.
STEP 2: ASK
Submit your questions privately and hear Rachel work through the situations members are facing in real time.
STEP 3: PRACTICE
Join Rachel for Live Coaching—or learn by listening as another member works through a real workplace situation.
Sometimes you'll bring the question. Sometimes your biggest takeaway will come from hearing someone else's.
You learn. You ask. You practice. And you get better at the work by doing the work.
WHAT'S INCLUDED
Everything Included in Your Lab Membership
01
20 Weekly Decision Labs
Twenty live 60-minute sessions combining practical teaching, Q&A, and Live Coaching around real workplace accommodation and leave situations.
02
Private Podcast
Can't attend live? Each regular weekly Lab is made available as a private audio podcast.
Listen through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your preferred podcast app whenever it works for you—or revisit a particularly useful case or conversation later.
03
Practical Resource Library
Access scripts, samples, questionnaires, learning guides, process tools, and other practical resources designed to make the repeatable parts of this work easier to manage.
And the library grows with the Lab.
When a question or case reminds Rachel of a resource she knows will help, she'll add it so the entire community can benefit.
04
Case + Question Submission
Bring the situations you're navigating.
Ask questions live or submit workplace situations in advance without including identifying or confidential information.
05
20 SHRM Professional Development Credits
Complete the 20-week ADA Decision Lab and earn 20 SHRM Professional Development Credits (PDCs) while strengthening the skills you use in your work.
06
Priority Boot Camp Registration
ADA Decision Lab members receive early access to registration for Rachel's in-person Disability & Leave Management Boot Camp before registration opens to the public.
Built for the Professionals
Doing This Work Every Day
ADA Coordinators
HR Professionals
Employee Relations
Benefits
Leave Administration
Return-to-Work
Labor Relations
Risk Management
This is for you if…
- You’re responsible for ADA, FMLA, or leave decisions.
- You’re tired of gray areas with no clear direction.
- You want to build confidence in your decision-making.
- You can’t get to Boot Camp, but need support
- You’ve attended training but still find yourself thinking, “What do I actually do here?”
- You want to pressure-test your approach before making the call.
TWO WAYS TO JOIN
Choose Your Lab Experience
Both options include the complete 20-week ADA Decision Lab.
VIP is for members who want more direct access to Rachel while the Lab is underway.
STANDARD
COMPLETE LAB
$697
The complete ADA Decision Lab experience.
01
20 weekly 60-minute Decision Labs
02
Private audio podcast
03
Practical Resource Library
04
Case + question submission
05
20 SHRM Professional Development Credits
06
Priority Boot Camp registration
VIP
MORE ACCESS
$997
Everything in Standard—plus six additional hours of access to Rachel.
01
20 weekly 60-minute Decision Labs
02
Private audio podcast
03
Practical Resource Library
04
Case + question submission
05
20 SHRM Professional Development Credits
06
Priority Boot Camp registration
07
Five monthly 60-minute VIP Extended Office Hours + Live Coaching sessions
08
Priority case + question submission for VIP sessions
09
Two private 30-minute Case Review Sessions with Rachel
Want More Access to Rachel?
Here's What VIP Adds
VIP isn't a different curriculum.
It's greater access.
5Â VIP EXTENDED OFFICE HOURS + LIVE COACHING SESSIONS
On the last Tuesday of each month, VIP members are invited to stay after the regular Decision Lab for an additional hour of smaller-group Extended Office Hours and Live Coaching.
Bring a question you've been wrestling with, a challenging workplace situation, or an issue in your process or programming you'd like help thinking through.
VIP members receive priority case/question submission for these sessions.
TWOÂ PRIVATE CASE REVIEW SESSIONS
You'll also receive two private 30-minute sessions with Rachel during the 20-week Lab. Come alone or bring your team.
Use the time to work through a workplace situation, decision, process, or challenge and get Rachel's perspective on what you're navigating.
Rachel's current consulting rate is $550 per hour. Your VIP membership includes a full hour of private time with Rachel across these two sessions as part of your Lab experience.
Together, VIP gives you six additional hours of access to Rachel during the Lab.
20 Weeks From Now, I Want the Work to Feel Different.
TEAM ENROLLMENT
Bringing Your Team?
Want your team working from the same framework?
Organizations can enroll multiple employees in the Standard ADA Decision Lab, helping teams build a more consistent approach to workplace accommodation and leave decision-making.
Team packages include Standard Lab access. VIP is not included.
Support is available for invoicing, procurement, W-9 requests, and seat administration.
LARGER ORGANIZATIONS
Need more than 50 seats?
Let's talk about a custom enrollment package for your organization.
QUESTIONS? START HERE.
Frequently Asked Questions
Each regular weekly Lab is made available as a private audio podcast, so you can listen on your schedule through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your preferred podcast app.
Join us live whenever you can so you can participate in the questions, discussion, and Live Coaching. But if you miss a Tuesday—or simply want to revisit a useful conversation—you can listen later.
Regular weekly sessions are recorded as audio only. Video recordings are not provided to help protect the confidentiality of the community.
Absolutely.
Members are encouraged not to identify themselves, their organization, or the individuals involved when sharing workplace situations.
You can ask questions live or submit them in advance.
No.
The ADA Decision Lab focuses on the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), and practical decision-making principles.
State-specific requirements may differ.
They solve different problems.
Boot Camp helps you build the program.
We focus on the processes, tools, templates, documentation, and framework your organization needs to manage workplace accommodations.
The ADA Decision Lab helps you practice the work.
Week after week, you'll work through the questions, cases, and difficult situations that come with managing accommodations and leave in the real world.
You do not need to attend Boot Camp before joining the ADA Decision Lab.
Standard includes the complete 20-week ADA Decision Lab experience.
VIP includes everything in Standard plus five monthly Extended Office Hours + Live Coaching sessions, priority case/question submission for those sessions, and two private 30-minute Case Review Sessions with Rachel.
VIP adds six additional hours of access to Rachel.
Yes.
Most organizations use a corporate credit card to register online.
Invoice payment is also available for purchases over $750 and team packages.
If your organization requires a W-9, procurement assistance, or other documentation, our team can help.
One 20-week cohort is designed to stand on its own.
You'll spend those 20 weeks practicing with real situations, asking better questions, learning from other professionals, and building more experience to draw from.
You don't need to continue.
But you can return for a future cohort if you want to keep practicing. Every cohort brings new training, questions, cases, tools, and workplace challenges.
You can participate in the Lab at different experience levels.
If you're newer to this work—or want to strengthen your foundational ADA knowledge at the same time—the ADA Decision-Maker Pathway combines ADA Essentials with the 20-week Standard ADA Decision Lab.
Learn the work. Practice the work. Strengthen your judgment.
What professionals are saying
Real Professionals. Real Work. Real Results.
Real feedback from LinkedIn about learning from Rachel Shaw and the value of practical ADA decision-making support.
I've done this work too.
I know what it's like to have a difficult situation sitting on your desk while everyone wants to know what happens next.
The ADA Decision Lab isn't built around perfect textbook facts. It's built around the reality that workplace accommodation and leave work involves incomplete information, competing priorities, human beings, operational needs, and pressure to get the process right.
For more than 25 years, I've helped employers build and strengthen workplace disability compliance programs. Along the way, I've developed, tested, revised, and refined the scripts, samples, templates, questionnaires, learning guides, processes, and decision-making strategies I use in real organizations.
When one of those tools can remove unnecessary difficulty, I want you to have it.
But a tool can't have the conversation for you. It can't decide which facts matter, challenge an unsupported assumption, explore an alternative, navigate disagreement, or know when it's time to pause and bring in additional expertise.
That's the work we practice together.
My goal isn't to make you dependent on me for every answer. It's to help you become more capable, confident, curious, and courageous in the work you are already responsible for doing.
