There's a certain irony in law firms having inaccessible websites. You may spend your days advocating for clients who face barriers in the justice system — and meanwhile, your website has barriers that prevent people with disabilities from accessing your services. Beyond the ethics of it, accessibility has real legal, commercial, and SEO implications that every law firm should understand.
Web accessibility isn't about adding a compliance checkbox to your to-do list. It's about making sure that a client who uses a screen reader because they have a visual impairment, or a client who can't use a mouse because of a physical disability, can still find you, read about your services, and contact you. That's the entire point.
The Legal Landscape for Web Accessibility in Canada
In Canada, web accessibility obligations vary by province and sector. At the federal level, the Accessible Canada Act (ACA) of 2019 establishes accessibility requirements for federally regulated entities. Provincially, Ontario's AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act) is the most developed framework — AODA requires that websites of organisations with 50 or more employees meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA standards.
For many law firms, these specific frameworks may not currently apply directly. But the direction of travel is clear: accessibility standards are expanding, enforcement is increasing, and accessibility complaints and litigation have been growing in both Canada and the US.
What WCAG Compliance Actually Means in Practice
WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is the international standard for web accessibility. The guidelines are organised around four principles: content must be Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. In practice, for a law firm website, the most important requirements are:
Accessibility and SEO: The Overlap Is Significant
Here's something worth knowing: almost everything that makes a website more accessible also makes it better for SEO. The overlap is not a coincidence — Google's search crawler essentially uses a website the way a screen reader does. It reads text, follows links, and can't see images. What's good for screen reader users is good for search engines.
Specific examples: alt text on images helps both screen readers and Google image search. Proper heading structure helps both users navigating by heading and Google understanding the structure of your content. Descriptive link text ("read our guide to custody law") beats generic link text ("click here") for both accessibility and anchor text SEO value.
AI search systems also benefit from well-structured, accessible content. Pages where the semantic hierarchy is clear — where headings properly signal content structure and text is logically organised — are easier for AI systems to parse and cite accurately. Accessibility improvements are, in many cases, AI search optimisation improvements.
How to Audit Your Law Firm Website for Accessibility
You don't need a specialist to do an initial accessibility check. There are free tools that will identify most common issues in minutes:
- WAVE (wave.webaim.org): Enter your URL and it highlights accessibility errors directly on the page, showing you exactly what's wrong and where.
- Google Lighthouse: Built into Chrome DevTools (F12 → Lighthouse tab). Run an Accessibility audit and it scores your page with specific issues flagged.
- axe DevTools: A browser extension that identifies WCAG violations. More technical than WAVE but very comprehensive.
- Manual keyboard test: Put your mouse away and try to navigate your entire website using Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter, and arrow keys. Try to fill out the contact form. You'll find issues fast.
A full WCAG 2.1 Level AA audit conducted by an accessibility specialist is more thorough and the right approach for firms with real compliance obligations. But a WAVE scan takes five minutes and will surface the most critical issues on your site that you can address immediately.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on your province and size. Ontario firms with 50+ employees are subject to AODA and must meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA standards. Federal requirements under the ACA are expanding. Even where not legally mandated, accessibility is best practice and the direction of regulation is clearly toward broader requirements.
No — and be cautious of vendors selling these products. Overlay widgets (JavaScript tools that add an accessibility menu) do not make a site genuinely compliant with WCAG standards. They address some surface-level issues but miss the underlying structural problems. Real compliance requires building accessibility into the website properly.
Positively. Accessible websites have better semantic structure, proper alt text, logical heading hierarchies, and descriptive link text — all of which are also SEO best practices. Google's crawler essentially reads your website like a screen reader, so accessibility improvements consistently translate into SEO improvements.
For a site with moderate accessibility issues, a developer can typically fix the most critical WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA issues in a few days of focused work. The bigger investment is in ongoing maintenance — making sure new content and pages are added accessibly. That's why building accessibility into your content workflow matters more than a one-time fix.
Missing or inadequate image alt text is by far the most common issue. Running a WAVE scan on most law firm websites shows multiple images with no alt text — especially decorative photos used in headers and banners. This is also an SEO issue, as Google cannot understand images without alt text.