In the previous video, I interviewed Richard Hunt. Richard is an attorney who specializes in defending businesses against ADA and FHA litigation. And more specifically, he’s been defending businesses against website accessibility litigation since 2015. The interview went extremely well.
Richard’s information and insight were on point and very helpful. And really, that’s the reason I had him on is because he is who I would recommend anybody to if they were involved in litigation. And so from the interview, we talked about the different settlement amount ranges, and what to expect, a lot of people want to know about that.
We talked about the common accessibility issues that he comes across.
When defending against litigation. We talked about the current legal landscape and how it mostly stays the same, but something’s changed and is different.
Also, what he anticipates going forward. He also carried forward a theme that runs across my video, which is to invest into accessibility, not in litigation. There’s no reason to pay plaintiffs’ law firms when we can simply invest that money into accessibility and prevent litigation altogether.
Richard echoed a similar sentiment and to paraphrase, spend your money on your website, not on your lawyer and he says that even as a defense attorney in this space, and then Richard also talks about the real reason why he recommends people make their website accessible is to not lose any customers.
And, of course, he acknowledges that litigation is always a consideration. But given that the vast majority of businesses will never face litigation, he recommends that you do so simply out of your own best interest. Richard also gave an anecdote I thought was really interesting.
So what happens is some defense law firms will- they’ll monitor who’s had a complaint filed against him. And once someone has a complaint filed against him, that defense law firm will send a letter talking about all of the defenses that are available and how they can- they’ll use aggressive language and that they can really disarm the plaintiffs’ law firms.
And Richard says that he can look at this letter and the defenses outline, and he knows most of them won’t work. And so what will end up happening is that client or prospective client will spend a lot of money, and they’ll ultimately end up settling the case anyway.
So all that happens is they paid out more money than is necessary and Richard, having so much experience in this space, he knows it inside and out.
And so you really want to hire someone who does have this experience. Who is aware, because this space is different than traditional business litigation, and you do need to be aware of the different nuances in play, and there’s nobody that knows them better than Richard.
So it’s just such a good interview. I highly recommend it, and I will link to the interview in the description below.
