What Law Firms Need to Know About ADA Accessibility for Their Website

Website accessibility lawsuits aren’t just a retail problem. Law firms get demand letters too, and a firm that advises clients on risk doesn’t want to be the defendant. Some of these suits are legitimate and some look like shakedowns, but the fix is the same either way: a website people with disabilities can actually use.

Updated November 2026. An earlier version of this post recommended an accessibility widget. We no longer do, for the reasons below.

How the ADA applies to websites

Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act covers businesses open to the public, and the Department of Justice’s position is that their websites must be accessible too. Its 2022 guidance on web accessibility says so, but it doesn’t set a technical standard for private businesses. In practice, courts and plaintiffs measure websites against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), at level AA.

Government websites now have a firm rule. In 2024 the DOJ adopted WCAG 2.1 AA for state and local government sites under Title II, with compliance dates moved in 2026 to April 2027 or April 2028, depending on size. Private businesses aren’t covered by that rule, but it shows which standard the government considers reasonable.

Many website suits are filed in New York and California, where state law adds its own exposure: California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, for example, sets minimum damages of $4,000 per violation.

Why accessibility widgets don’t solve it

Accessibility widgets, often called overlays, add a toolbar to your site that lets visitors change font size, contrast or spacing. They’re sold as a quick path to compliance. They aren’t:

• They don’t fix the code. Screen readers and keyboard users rely on the page underneath: headings, form labels, image descriptions, focus order. A toolbar on top doesn’t repair any of that.
• They don’t stop lawsuits. Sites with widgets installed are still sued, because the barriers in the underlying page are still there.
• Regulators have noticed. In 2025 the Federal Trade Commission ordered accessiBe to pay $1 million over claims that its AI widget could make any website WCAG-compliant.
• Many disabled users find them in the way. People who already use a screen reader or magnifier have their own settings; a second layer often conflicts with them.

What actually makes a site accessible

Most problems on law firm websites are common and fixable:

• Image descriptions. Every meaningful image gets alt text that says what it shows; decorative images are marked so screen readers skip them.
• Color contrast. Text needs enough contrast against its background to be read by people with low vision (4.5:1 for normal text).
• Headings in order. One H1 per page, then H2s and H3s that outline the content, so screen reader users can jump between sections.
• Forms with labels. Every field has a visible label, errors are explained in words, and the form can be completed with a keyboard alone.
• Keyboard navigation. Every link, menu and button can be reached with the Tab key, with a visible outline showing where you are, and a “skip to content” link past the menu.
• Video and audio. Captions on videos, and a transcript for audio.
• Documents. PDFs such as intake forms are tagged for screen readers, or offered as a web page instead.

How to show a good-faith effort

1. Test the site. Run a free automated checker (such as WAVE or axe) on your main pages, then try them with only a keyboard. Automated tools catch many common problems but not all of them; a manual check finds the rest.
2. Fix what you find, starting with forms, navigation and your most visited pages.
3. Publish an accessibility statement that names the standard you’re working toward, how you test, and how a visitor can report a problem by email or phone.
4. Respond to reports and keep a record of what you fixed and when.
5. Re-test after changes. New pages, plugins and theme updates are where accessibility usually breaks.

No website can promise it will never receive a demand letter, and accessibility law keeps changing. But a site built and tested against WCAG 2.2 AA, with a statement and a record of fixes, is accessible to the people it’s meant to serve and much easier to defend. That’s the standard we build and test our clients’ sites to.