There are new Americans with Disabilities Act requirements for state and local governments, so as employees of the University of Michigan, my colleagues and I have been preparing to meet them for over a year.¹ Recently, I began wondering about the accessibility of websites for law firms in Michigan, so I conducted a brief and informal survey of randomly selected firms based on affiliations listed in the State Bar of Michigan’s ‘Find a Lawyer’ directory.² I ran each site through the automated tool offered by AccessibilityChecker.org and found that 100% of the sites I checked were rated as noncompliant with the new web accessibility standards.³ In addition to that, consider the fact that in Michigan at least 14.5% of the population lives with a disability.⁴ Since it’s likely that lawyers will be representing clients in cases related to the inaccessibility of state and government web content, doesn’t it seem reasonable for the websites of the firms representing them to meet those standards as well?

THE NEW STANDARDS

Last year’s changes to Title II of the ADA mean that web content and mobile apps provided by state and local governments must soon meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards.⁵ WCAG, or Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, are a set of internationally agreed-upon recommendations published by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).⁶ The version (2.1) and level (AA) detail specific conformance standards and outline the technical requirements content must meet to be considered accessible.⁷ Accessibility, in this context, means ensuring there are no barriers to interacting with or accessing web content, specifically for people with disabilities, including, but not limited to, visual or auditory disabilities, motor/mobility impairments, and cognitive or intellectual disabilities.⁸

PICTURE THIS

Let’s say someone has a temporary disability, such as a broken arm and wrist, which they sustained in a car accident, and they’re looking for an attorney on your firm’s website. If the broken arm and wrist are on their dominant side, they would likely have a hard time navigating a website without help. They may not know they can use assistive technology to read webpages for them, or maybe they can’t afford to purchase that software.⁹ Instead, they might spend hours trying to learn to use a mouse with their non-dominant hand or clicking the tab or arrow keys to try and move up and down a webpage, only to become frustrated because the navigation menu isn’t designed in a way to make this possible.¹⁰ How long do you think it would take this person before they gave up and went to a website for a different law firm? How long would it take you?

THAT’S NOT ALL

It’s not just your website that needs to be accessible. One of the most frequently used document types in any workplace, the PDF, also requires some additional steps to be truly accessible.¹¹ Headings, a table of contents, and bookmarks are just a few of the navigation elements that sighted people often don’t think about adding but which are immensely helpful for anyone using a screen reader.¹² What about online forms? Maybe your firm uses one to gather potential client data. That’s another type of web content that is often not truly accessible to screen readers or people navigating a webpage without the use of a mouse.¹³ When you add it all up, if most of the web content for your law firm isn’t accessible, it can create additional (and preventable) barriers to equal access to justice for your current and potential clients, something all lawyers have an ethical obligation to avoid.¹⁴

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

Making web and mobile content accessible benefits not only individuals, but businesses and society at large.¹⁵ This means one could easily make a business case for accessibility. Both Apple and Google already did. Since the early 2000s they’ve each spent time focusing on enhancing different products for users with disabilities.¹⁶ Research has shown that companies that integrate accessibility are more likely to innovate and reach more people.¹⁷ Now, most Michigan law firms aren’t competing on a global scale like Apple or Google, but that doesn’t mean reaching these accessibility standards is out of reach. There are many services that can evaluate your content and provide recommendations and/or fixes.¹⁸ Something to keep in mind, however, is that although automated tools like the one I used to conduct my experiment can quickly identify straightforward technical issues, they can’t address fixes that require human judgment, such as whether the flow of navigation menu items is logical, or the clarity of error messages in an online form.¹⁹

WILL YOU BE AN A11Y?²⁰

Now that you’re aware of the barriers inaccessible web content can create, what can you do? Your best course of action is to talk to the person or team in charge of your firm’s web content about what can be done to make it accessible. You can let your clients know that you’re aware of the standards and what action steps you will be taking to meet them. You can make a point to continue to monitor changes to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and evolve along with them. Ultimately, unless you generate web content for a state or local government body or court, you don’t have to do any of this. But I hope you will. I hope you strive to meet these standards and make your corner of the web more usable, for everyone.

The views expressed in “Libraries & Legal Research,” as well as other expressions of opinions published in the Bar Journal from time to time, do not necessarily state or reflect the official position of the State Bar of Michigan, nor does their publication constitute an endorsement of the views expressed. They are the opinions of the authors and are intended not to end discussion, but to stimulate thought about significant issues affecting the legal profession, the making of laws, and the adjudication of disputes.