Check Your ADA Lawsuit Risk
Plaintiff attorneys use automated tools just like this one to find websites with accessibility violations. They file lawsuits for a living. Is your site on their list?
How it works
We run the same type of automated scan that plaintiff firms use to identify lawsuit targets.
Every violation is something a plaintiff attorney could cite in a demand letter. Severity tells you how bad it looks.
Fix the findings and set up monitoring. Attorneys move on to easier targets.
How plaintiff attorneys find their targets
ADA web accessibility lawsuits don't happen randomly. They're a business. Plaintiff law firms employ teams of people whose entire job is finding websites to sue. They use automated scanning tools that crawl thousands of sites per day, flagging the ones with clear WCAG violations. When a scan returns missing alt text, unlabeled form fields, or busted color contrast, that website goes on the list.
The scanning part takes seconds. The same kind of automated check you can run on this page is what these firms run at industrial scale. They feed in lists of businesses by industry, geography, and size. E-commerce sites, restaurants, healthcare providers, professional services. The tool scans, flags violations, generates a report, and the attorney decides whether to send a demand letter.
They're not looking for nuanced, edge-case accessibility problems. They want the easy wins: images with no alt text, buttons with no labels, forms that a screen reader can't navigate. These violations are binary. Either the alt text exists or it doesn't. There's no room for interpretation, which means there's no room for defense. That's why they target these specific issues. The case is almost impossible to dispute.
Some firms go further. They maintain databases of websites they've scanned, track which businesses have been sued before and settled, and monitor for regressions. A business that fixed its site after a lawsuit but then let violations creep back in through content updates or redesigns becomes an even more attractive target the second time around. The plaintiff can argue the business knew about its obligations and still failed to maintain compliance.
The ADA demand letter business model
Understanding why these lawsuits keep increasing requires understanding the economics behind them. ADA web accessibility litigation is a volume practice. A single plaintiff firm might file 200 to 400 cases per year. At an average settlement of $5,000 to $10,000 per case, that's $1 million to $4 million in annual revenue from demand letters alone. Cases that go to court settle for more but require more attorney time, so the sweet spot for most firms is the pre-litigation demand letter.
The cost structure favors the plaintiff side. Scanning tools are cheap or free. Drafting a demand letter from a template takes an hour of paralegal time. Sending a hundred letters in a week costs almost nothing. Even if only 60% of recipients settle, the math works out comfortably. The firms that do this well have it down to a production line: scan, document, draft, send, negotiate, collect, repeat.
For the receiving business, the calculus is different. Hiring a lawyer to respond to a demand letter costs $2,000 to $5,000 just for the initial review and response. Fighting the claim through litigation adds $15,000 to $50,000 in legal fees even if you win. Most small business owners do the math and realize that settling for $5,000 to $7,500 is cheaper than fighting, even if they believe the claim is weak. The plaintiff firms know this, and they price their demands accordingly.
This isn't theoretical. The top ADA web accessibility plaintiff firms in the country each send hundreds of demand letters per year. A few individual plaintiffs have been named in over a thousand cases across their lifetimes. Courts have pushed back on some serial filers, but the practice remains legal and profitable. As long as websites have violations and the ADA provides a private right of action, the demand letter business will continue to grow.
What makes a website an attractive target
Not every website with accessibility violations gets a demand letter. Plaintiff firms are selective. They optimize for cases that will settle quickly with minimal effort. Here's what makes a site attractive:
Obvious, undeniable violations. Missing alt text on images is the single most targeted issue because it's binary and affects screen reader users directly. Empty buttons and links, form inputs without labels, and missing document language are close behind. These issues are trivially detectable by automated tools and impossible to argue about. Either the alt text is there or it isn't.
No accessibility statement. A website without an accessibility statement signals that the business hasn't thought about accessibility at all. Plaintiff attorneys see this as a green light. An accessibility statement doesn't prevent lawsuits, but its absence suggests easy pickings because the business likely hasn't taken any remediation steps.
Prior complaints or lawsuits. Businesses that have been sued before and settled are tracked. If a firm sees that you settled a previous ADA claim and your site still has violations (even different ones), they know you'll probably settle again. The fact that you were previously on notice makes the case stronger.
High-profile or high-revenue businesses. E-commerce sites with large product catalogs are particularly attractive because each product page can have multiple violations. A store with 500 products missing alt text on product images has 500 instances of the same violation, which plaintiff attorneys frame as pervasive and systemic rather than an isolated oversight.
Businesses in favorable jurisdictions. If you operate in New York or California, or if your website is accessible from those states (which it is, because it's the internet), you face elevated risk. New York's Human Rights Law and California's Unruh Civil Rights Act both provide additional damages on top of federal ADA claims, making lawsuits in those jurisdictions significantly more lucrative for plaintiff firms.
Your exposure right now
Here's the uncomfortable reality: your website is public. Anyone can visit it. Anyone can scan it. Anyone can document its accessibility failures and use that documentation as the basis for a legal claim. There is no obscurity defense. Being a small business doesn't help. Being in a low-litigation state doesn't help. Having a low-traffic website doesn't help. The only thing that helps is not having violations.
The ADA has no statute of limitations that meaningfully protects you. Because accessibility barriers are treated as ongoing violations (the barrier exists every time someone visits your site), the clock resets continuously. There's no point at which your existing violations become too old to sue over. They're actionable today, tomorrow, and every day until you fix them.
Plaintiff firms are scanning more websites every year. The tools get better, the databases get bigger, and the demand letter template gets more refined. In 2018, roughly 2,258 ADA web accessibility lawsuits were filed in federal court. In 2025, that number hit 3,948, up 24% year over year after a brief dip. A small pool of 33 serial plaintiffs drove half the volume, and 16 law firms accounted for 90% of filings. Those are just the cases that reach federal court. Pre-litigation demand letters outnumber actual filings by a significant margin, with estimates of three to five demand letters for every lawsuit filed.
The question isn't whether your website has accessibility violations. Based on industry data, about 96% of websites do. The question is whether a plaintiff firm has gotten to yours yet.
What this scan tells you
The scan on this page runs the same types of automated checks that plaintiff law firms use to identify targets. It evaluates your site against WCAG 2.1 Level AA criteria and flags violations by severity: critical, serious, moderate, and minor.
Critical and serious violations are the ones that show up in demand letters. Missing alt text, unlabeled form fields, empty interactive elements, insufficient color contrast. If this scan finds those on your site, a plaintiff firm's scanner will find them too. The difference is that when you find them first, you can fix them before they become a $10,000 problem.
Automated scanning catches about 30 to 40% of all WCAG criteria. That sounds limited, but those are disproportionately the issues cited in actual lawsuits. Plaintiff firms target automated findings because they're cheap to detect and hard to dispute. Fixing your automated findings eliminates the majority of your demand letter risk.
For full coverage, combine this scan with manual testing: navigate your site by keyboard, test with a screen reader, verify that all interactive elements work without a mouse. But start here. The automated findings are the low-hanging fruit that plaintiff firms are harvesting right now.
Run the same scan plaintiff attorneys use. Find your violations before they do. Free, no signup, 30 seconds.
Check Your RiskFrequently asked questions
How likely is it that my website will get an ADA lawsuit?
If your website has accessibility violations and is publicly accessible, you are a potential target. 3,948 ADA web accessibility lawsuits were filed in federal court in 2025, up 24% from the year before, plus thousands more pre-litigation demand letters. 33 serial plaintiffs drove roughly half of filings and 16 law firms handled 90%. The more obvious your violations (missing alt text, unlabeled forms, poor contrast), the higher your risk. There's no size threshold or industry exemption. Any public-facing website with detectable violations is fair game.
Who files ADA web accessibility lawsuits?
The vast majority come from a small number of plaintiff law firms that specialize in high-volume ADA litigation. These firms represent individual plaintiffs who use assistive technology and encounter accessibility barriers. Some firms file hundreds of cases per year using a combination of automated scanning and manual testing. The top ten plaintiff firms account for roughly 60% of all ADA web accessibility filings nationally. Individual plaintiffs can be named in dozens or even hundreds of cases over their lifetimes.
How do plaintiff attorneys find websites to sue?
They use the same types of automated accessibility scanning tools available to anyone. The firms crawl websites by industry, geography, and business size, flagging the ones with clear WCAG violations. Once a scan identifies issues, the firm evaluates whether the business is worth pursuing based on factors like the severity of violations, the business's likely ability to pay, and whether the jurisdiction is favorable. Some firms maintain databases of previously scanned and sued businesses to track regressions.
Can I prevent an ADA lawsuit?
You can significantly reduce your risk by proactively fixing accessibility violations before a plaintiff firm finds them. Start with an automated scan to catch the most common issues, fix critical and serious violations first, and set up ongoing monitoring to catch regressions from content updates and redesigns. Publishing an accessibility statement also helps. While nothing guarantees immunity, businesses that maintain WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance are far less attractive targets because the easy violations are gone. The goal is to not be the low-hanging fruit.
What should I do if I've already received a demand letter?
Don't ignore it. Contact an attorney experienced in ADA web accessibility cases immediately. Most demand letters give you 30 days to respond, and ignoring the letter typically leads to a filed lawsuit with higher costs. Your attorney will evaluate the specific claims, negotiate a settlement if appropriate, and advise on remediation timeline. Typical demand letter settlements range from $3,000 to $25,000. Simultaneously, begin fixing the cited violations. Demonstrating active remediation strengthens your negotiating position and reduces the risk of repeat lawsuits from other firms.
Is there a statute of limitations for ADA website violations?
Functionally, no. The ADA itself doesn't specify a statute of limitations for web accessibility claims. Federal courts borrow the limitation period from analogous state laws, typically two to three years. But because website accessibility barriers are treated as ongoing violations (the barrier exists each time someone visits), the clock resets with every visit. As long as the violations remain on your site, they're actionable. There is no point at which existing violations become too old to sue over. The only way to stop the clock is to fix the issues.
Related tools: Home · ADA compliance checker · WCAG compliance checker · Website accessibility checker · ADA website compliance · ADA compliance for ecommerce · ADA compliance for small business
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