There's a deep irony in the world of web accessibility: the professionals who defend clients against ADA lawsuits often have the least accessible websites of any industry. Law firm websites are consistently among the worst performers in WCAG audits.
We ran automated WCAG 2.2 audits on hundreds of law firm websites across the US. Here are the ten violations we found most frequently — ranked by how often they appear and how much legal risk they create.
1. Missing or empty image alt text
Found on 89% of law firm websites. Attorney headshots, team photos, office images, and decorative graphics are routinely missing alt attributes entirely. For a screen reader user, these images are invisible — or worse, announced as meaningless filenames like "IMG_4823.jpg".
The fix: Add descriptive alt text to all meaningful images. Use alt="" for purely decorative images to tell screen readers to skip them.
2. Poor color contrast on text
Found on 81% of law firm websites. Law firms love sophisticated, muted color palettes — gray text on white, light blue on cream. These choices routinely fail WCAG's minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text.
The fix: Use WebPossum's free scanner to identify contrast failures. Tools like the Chrome DevTools color picker show the contrast ratio in real time.
3. Contact forms without labels
Found on 76% of law firm websites. The "Contact Us" form is almost always the most important conversion point on a law firm website. It's also frequently inaccessible — input fields with placeholder text instead of proper <label> elements leave screen reader users unable to understand what to type.
The fix: Every input field needs an associated <label> element linked via for and id attributes. Placeholder text alone does not count.
4. No skip navigation link
Found on 74% of law firm websites. Keyboard users must tab through every navigation link on every page before reaching the main content. A simple "skip to main content" link at the top of the page solves this — but most firms don't have one.
The fix: Add a visually hidden but focusable link as the first element in <body>: <a href="#main" class="skip-link">Skip to main content</a>
5. Missing page titles
Found on 68% of law firm websites. Many pages across law firm sites have identical or generic <title> tags — or none at all. Screen reader users rely on page titles to orient themselves and decide whether to stay on a page.
The fix: Every page needs a unique, descriptive title: "Personal Injury Attorney Houston | Smith & Associates" is good. "Home" is not.
6. Keyboard traps in navigation menus
Found on 61% of law firm websites. Dropdown navigation menus built with JavaScript often trap keyboard users — they can tab into the menu but can't escape without using a mouse. This completely blocks navigation for users who can't use a mouse.
The fix: Ensure all dropdown menus are dismissible with the Escape key and that focus moves logically when navigating with Tab and arrow keys.
7. PDFs that are not accessible
Found on 58% of law firm websites. Law firms publish a lot of PDFs — case results, legal guides, intake forms. Scanned PDFs are essentially images with no accessible text. Screen readers can't read them at all.
The fix: Use tagged PDFs created from Word or InDesign. For scanned documents, run OCR and add proper tagging. Alternatively, provide the content as accessible HTML.
8. Videos without captions
Found on 54% of law firm websites. Attorney introduction videos, testimonials, and educational content published without captions exclude deaf and hard-of-hearing users — and violate WCAG 1.2.2.
The fix: Add accurate captions to all video content. YouTube and Vimeo both support caption uploads. Auto-generated captions alone are not sufficient for compliance.
9. Incorrect heading hierarchy
Found on 52% of law firm websites. Pages that jump from an H1 directly to H4, or use heading tags purely for visual styling, break the document structure that screen readers rely on to navigate content.
The fix: Use headings semantically and in order: H1 for the page title, H2 for major sections, H3 for subsections. Never skip heading levels.
10. Missing focus indicators
Found on 49% of law firm websites. Many law firm websites remove the browser's default focus outline (the blue ring around focused elements) for aesthetic reasons. This makes it impossible for keyboard users to know where they are on the page.
The fix: Never use outline: none without providing a custom focus style. WCAG 2.2 introduced new focus appearance requirements — your focus indicators must be clearly visible.
How to check your law firm's website
All ten of these violations are detectable with an automated accessibility scan. Run your website through WebPossum's free WCAG 2.2 scanner and get a full report in seconds — including which of these violations appear on your site and exactly which elements are affected.
Enter your URL and get a full WCAG 2.2 report. No signup, instant results.
Scan your firm's website at webpossum.com
If you need professional help remediating your site, contact hello@webpossum.com. We provide full audit reports and fix implementation with compliance documentation — exactly what you need to demonstrate good faith in the event of a complaint.