Litigating Website Accessibility Cases: An Overview and the View from the Plaintiff and Defense Perspectives (Presented by the Federal Bar Association’s Civil Rights Law Section)

Richard Hunt is a Texas Board Certified Civil Trial Lawyer and partner at Hunt Huey PLLC in Dallas, with more than forty years of experience representing businesses and individuals in litigation, arbitration, and mediation. His practice is centered on the disability rights provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fair Housing Act, providing both defense representation and compliance consulting to a national client base spanning real estate developers, retailers, restaurants, shopping centers, banks, apartment owners, hotels, and governmental entities. Richard is AV Rated by Martindale-Hubbell and is a Thomson Reuters Super Lawyer. He is the author of Accessibility Defense (accessdefense.com), a nationally recognized blog serving as a resource for attorneys, accessibility professionals, and others involved in ADA and FHA litigation. He has served as an adjunct professor of Disability Law at the SMU Dedman School of Law, an adjunct professor of Trial Advocacy at Texas Wesleyan School of Law, and on the Examination Committee for Civil Trial Certification for the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. He holds a B.A. in English and German (1978) and a J.D. (1981), and has been Board Certified in Civil Trial Law since 1990.

William D. Goren is an attorney and consultant at William D. Goren, J.D., LL.M. LLC in Decatur, Georgia, whose law and consulting practice — centered at understandingtheada.com — has focused exclusively on the Americans with Disabilities Act and related laws since 1990. His practice provides consulting, counseling, representation, and training on compliance with the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Air Carrier Access Act, the Fair Housing Act, and related disability rights laws. Mr. Goren is himself deaf with a congenital bilateral hearing loss of 70–120+ decibels, giving him a deep personal understanding of what disability means in practice and how the ADA actually operates — perspective he brings to every client engagement and training. He is a frequent presenter, a trained mediator, a FINRA arbitrator (Chairperson eligible), and an arbitrator on the CPR employment panel. He is the author of Understanding the ADA, now in its 4th edition (ABA, 2013), and numerous articles on the rights of persons with disabilities. He holds an A.B. from Vassar College, a J.D. from the University of San Diego School of Law, and an LL.M. in Health Law from DePaul University College of Law — one of the first recipients of that degree in the country.

Jessie Weber is Managing Partner at Brown, Goldstein & Levy, LLP, where she focuses on civil litigation nationwide with an emphasis on disability rights, fair housing, workplace justice, and appellate litigation. She has successfully litigated and resolved cases involving accessible technology and document formats, voting rights for individuals with print disabilities, access to health care and educational opportunities, and employment discrimination. Among her most significant matters, she represents blind students and the National Federation of the Blind in litigation against the Los Angeles Community College District, obtaining a jury verdict finding LACCD violated Title II of the ADA through inaccessible technology and awarding over $240,000 in damages to individual plaintiffs — a verdict recently reinstated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She was also part of the legal team in Robles v. Domino’s Pizza, LLC, achieving both a landmark Ninth Circuit decision clarifying that public accommodations must make their web and mobile services accessible under the ADA, and a subsequent trial court order holding Domino’s in violation and requiring remediation. Before joining BGL, Ms. Weber was a Francis D. Murnaghan, Jr. Appellate Advocacy Fellow at the Public Justice Center, and before that clerked for Judge Catherine C. Blake of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. She serves as president of the board of Disability Rights Maryland and holds her A.B. from Princeton University and her J.D. from Yale Law School.