Ecommerce and the ADA: Litigating Access in the Online Economy

This program will review the ever-changing landscape of Americans with Disabilities Act law in the context of increasing online economic activity. The ADA was formulated in 1990, well before today's digital age, defining covered businesses to include stores, hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, and other such places. Without updates to the law itself, district courts and litigants have spent the past decade working out the meaning of access when stores sell online, hotels take reservations through websites, food is ordered on an app, and new movies are streaming. These issues have taken a more urgent tone in a post-COVID world, where access to a world delivered through the Internet has become unavoidable. 

In this course, Nolan Klein, Esq. will walk through basic ADA concepts, how those concepts translate to the online world, the various arguments and cases that have formed today's landscape in this area of law, discuss technical specifications and requirements that provide access online to those who need it, and review litigation techniques and strategies when litigating these and other ADA cases. 

Learning Objectives:

1. Discuss basic ADA concepts and how these translate to commercial activity that takes place online

2. Review new caselaw over the past several years, wrestling with the interaction between access requirements and online activities

3. Identify current accepted standards in ADA compliance online and how these might evolve in the future

4. Prepare litigation strategies and techniques for handling website-based ADA claims