Over the weekend, I researched a sample of 35 complaints filed by the most active plaintiffs’ law firms in 2024 and 2023, and there has been a notable shift in website accessibility lawsuits – specifically in the frequency and types of issues being claimed.
Let’s cover some of the key takeaways. If you’d like to access the distilled data and detailed takeaways (including prioritization of issues), you can access all of the findings and unredacted spreadsheet inside my ADA Compliance Course.
Note: here is the redacted version of my lawsuits spreadsheet without accessibility issues.
Plaintiffs’ Law Firms
Here are the plaintiffs’ lawyers whose complaints were reviewed along with the state of filing:
- Pacific Trial Attorneys (California)
- Wilshire Law Firm, PLC (California)
- Manning Law, APC (California)
- Oceanside Law Center APC (California)
- Center for Disability Access (California)
- J. Courtney Cunningham, PLLC (Florida)
- Alberto R. Leal, Esq., P.A. (Florida)
- Acacia Barros, P.A. (Florida)
- Roderick V. Hannah, Esq., P.A., Law Office of Pelayo Duran, P.A. (Florida)
- Aleksandra Kravets, Esq., P.A. (Florida)
- Mendez Law Offices, PLLC / Adams & Associates, P.A. (Florida)
- Glenn R. Goldstein & Associates, PLLC (Florida)
- Gottlieb & Associates PLLC (New York)
- Joseph & Norinsberg, LLC (New York)
- Mizrahi Kroub LLP (New York)
- Shaked Law Group, P.C. (New York)
- Gabriel A. Levy, P.C. (New York)
- Asher Cohen, PLLC (New York)
- Stein Saks, PLLC (New Jersey)
- Uri Horowitz Law PLLC (Illinois)
- Shaked Law Group, P.C., Law Offices of Sanjay R. Gohil, PLLC (North Carolina)
- Carlson Brown (Pennsylvania)
- Zemel Law LLC (Pennsylvania)
- Mars Khaimov Law, PLLC (New York)
Key Industries Being Targeted
In my sample, here are the 3 industries that by far were sued the most:
- Retail (most targeted)
- Restaurants
- Healthcare (doctors and dentists)
New Players in the Field
We also see a handful of newer plaintiffs’ lawyers emerging as prominent filers:
- Rami Salim (Stein Saks)
- Gabriel Levy
- Uri Horowitz
- Alexandra Kravetz
Beyond Automated Scans
One important takeaway for website owners and defense attorneys both is that the scan era is over. This has been the case for a while, but after examining the latest complaints, it’s crystal clear that plaintiffs’ law firms have evolved from merely looking for issues returned by automated scans like WAVE or Google Lighthouse.
Yes, some plaintiffs’ lawyers still use scans – including PowerMapper beyond WAVE and Lighthouse, but the overwhelming majority of complaints name accessibility issues that scans do not detect.
I suspect a large number of plaintiffs’ law firms now have their own teams that include accessibility professionals manually evaluating websites. It’s not only the issues that are being claimed that lead me to this theory – it’s the level of specificity and sophistication of the details that makes me think this.
Notable Accessibility Claims Cited in Lawsuits
The move towards manual means that there has also been a shift in my accessibility issue prioritization recommendations. You can find my exact prioritization of the top 15 issues inside the ADA Compliance Course.
In addition to the priority, I would also pay attention to the following themes:
- Skip to Content Links: Many website owners sued had skip links in place, but because they allegedly didn’t skip content, it would up as a claimed issue.
- Sub-menus: Be careful if you have submenus. Submenu label and keyboard issues came up very frequently.
- Issue vs. Success Criteria: There’s not a clean alignment with WCAG and the issues claimed in complaints. On occasion, the issues claimed aren’t even requirements in WCAG standards (2.1 or 2.2, AA or AAA). And many other times, it’s not so much the success criteria requirements that I recommend focusing in on – it’s how plaintiffs’ lawyers apply their interpretation of the requirement and what content they most frequently look at.
What Website Owners Should Do
- Don’t Rely Solely on Automated Scans: While tools like WAVE, Google Lighthouse, AXE, and PowerMapper are nice starts, but they’re only a start.
- Anticipate Plaintiffs’ Lawyers Overzealousness: Some issues (like links opening in new tabs/windows) aren’t even required under WCAG, but you may want to eliminate these anyway.
- Prioritize Accessibility Issues: Work on the most commonly claimed issues first.
For strategy along with prioritization and fix recommendations (and model code), sign up for my ADA Compliance Course.