A11yscan
The Unknown Corporate Risk: Your Website vs. Your Marketing Department
Introduction
Your legal team reviews every marketing campaign before launch. Compliance approves every HR policy. Risk management oversees every contract.
But your website? The one generating millions in revenue, hosting thousands of pages, accessed by millions of visitors? That gets built by developers with no legal oversight.
This isn't security negligence. This isn't technical debt. This is a massive corporate liability that most legal departments don't understand exists.
Legal Disclaimer
A11yscan is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. We operate under best practices based on WCAG Guidelines, ADA requirements, and applicable jurisdictions. Courts don't always agree on terms and expectations for web accessibility, and legal standards can vary by jurisdiction. However, an accessible website works better for all users regardless of legal requirements. For specific legal guidance, consult with a qualified attorney specializing in accessibility law.
How Legal Review Differs Across Your Organization
Marketing Campaign: Heavy Legal Scrutiny
Before your marketing team launches a campaign:
- Copy goes to legal review
- Claims are fact-checked against marketing regulations
- Images are reviewed for intellectual property compliance
- Disclaimers are vetted against industry standards
- Social media posts are reviewed for regulatory compliance
- Email templates are reviewed for GDPR/CAN-SPAM compliance
- Ad network compliance is verified
- Executive approval is required
A single marketing email touching 100,000 inboxes? Legal review required.
HR Policy: Comprehensive Legal Vetting
Before your HR department releases a policy:
- Employment law attorneys review it
- Compliance checks for EEOC requirements
- Non-discrimination clauses are verified
- ADA accommodation language is reviewed
- State and federal employment laws are cross-referenced
- Risk management approves it
- C-suite signs off
An HR handbook affecting 500 employees? Multiple legal reviews before printing.
Your Website: Zero Legal Oversight
Before your technology team launches a website or major feature:
- Legal review happens
- Compliance signs off
- Accessibility is audited
None of this typically occurs.
Your website sits visible to millions. It hosts thousands of pages. It processes customer data. It generates millions in revenue. And it was built with zero legal accessibility review.
Why Your Website Is a Legal Ticking Time Bomb
Scale of Exposure
Consider the numbers:
- One marketing campaign: reaches 100K people, legal review conducted
- Your website: accessible to 100M+ people monthly, zero legal review
Your website has 1000x the exposure of a single marketing campaign. Yet marketing gets legal scrutiny and your website doesn't.
Accessibility Exposure
Accessibility lawsuits aren't about single pages. They're systemic. A typical website audit finds:
- Missing alt text on hundreds of images
- Non-keyboard-accessible buttons across dozens of pages
- Form fields without labels on checkout pages
- Color-only indicators of product status (colorblind users can't see availability)
- Videos without captions
- Insufficient color contrast on call-to-action buttons
- Broken heading hierarchy on content pages
- Unannounced dynamic content changes (JavaScript updates users can't hear)
These aren't typos. They're systematic violations that repeat across every page.
Litigation Landscape
Accessibility litigation is accelerating:
- 2024: 4,500+ ADA Title III lawsuits filed in the U.S.
- 2025: Expected to exceed 5,000+ filings
- Average settlement: $50K–$150K per case (plus legal fees)
- Large settlements: $500K–$5M+
This isn't hypothetical. Your competitors are being sued. Your industry peers are settling cases. The question isn't if you'll face litigation—it's when.
Systemic vs. Individual Violations
Here's what makes website accessibility different from a marketing campaign violation:
One bad marketing email is one violation affecting one campaign.
One bad website component is thousands of violations affecting thousands of pages—all simultaneously.
If your product card component is missing alt text, that's not one violation. If you have 5,000 products, that's 5,000 violations. Multiply that by every page where that component appears (related products, search results, homepage features) and you're looking at 25,000+ violations on a single component error.
Why Corporate Legal Departments Miss Website Accessibility Risk
Knowledge Gap
Most corporate attorneys aren't trained in web accessibility. They understand employment law, contracts, intellectual property, and regulatory compliance. But WCAG guidelines? Semantic HTML? Screen reader compatibility? These are outside their wheelhouse.
Result: Legal departments treat websites as technical problems, not legal ones.
Invisibility
Accessibility violations are invisible to sighted users. Your website looks perfect. It functions flawlessly for 84% of users. The marketing campaign looks great. The design is clean. The conversion funnel optimizes beautifully.
The fact that 16% of your potential market can't use it? Invisible.
Decentralized Ownership
Who owns website accessibility in your organization?
- Engineering? They prioritize feature development.
- Product? They focus on user experience for the majority.
- Design? They optimize for aesthetics.
- Legal? They don't understand it's their responsibility.
- Compliance? They don't know it falls under their purview.
No one owns it. So no one fixes it. And the risk accumulates silently.
No Scorecard
Your marketing department has KPIs. Your sales team has quotas. Your product team tracks NPS and engagement metrics.
Your website's accessibility score? Unknown. Unmeasured. Unmanaged.
You can't manage what you don't measure. So accessibility remains unmanaged.
The Asymmetry: Marketing Gets Lawyered, Websites Don't
Marketing Campaign Email
Exposure: 100,000 recipients
Legal review: Mandatory
Compliance check: Yes
Risk assessment: Conducted
Launch without approval: Impossible
HR Policy Document
Exposure: 500 employees
Legal review: Mandatory
Compliance check: Yes
Risk assessment: Conducted
Launch without approval: Impossible
Company Website
Exposure: 100M+ monthly visitors
Legal review: Not standard
Compliance check: Not standard
Risk assessment: Not conducted
Launch without approval: Standard practice
Your website reaches 1000x more people than a marketing campaign. Yet it gets zero legal scrutiny compared to the campaign's comprehensive review.
What Lawyers Don't Realize They're Exposing
ADA Title III Violations
The ADA applies to businesses providing goods and services to the public. Your website is providing services. Under ADA Title III, your website must be accessible to people with disabilities.
Most legal departments understand this conceptually. Few understand it operationally. One inaccessible website page isn't a violation. 5,000 inaccessible pages is a pattern of discrimination.
Demand Letters
Most website accessibility lawsuits don't start in court. They start with demand letters. Plaintiffs send detailed accessibility audits listing specific violations. They request remediation and damages.
This is where legal departments suddenly understand the issue exists.
Class Action Potential
Website accessibility cases often become class actions. One plaintiff discovers your site is inaccessible. Instead of a single case, you're facing a class of potentially thousands of users who were excluded from your website.
Damages multiply. Legal fees increase. Discovery becomes a nightmare. Your entire website becomes evidence.
Insurance Coverage Gap
Here's a critical issue: most corporate general liability policies don't cover website accessibility violations. They cover product liability, premises liability, advertising injury—but not digital accessibility discrimination.
Your company bears the full cost of a settlement.
The Liability You Already Have
Every Day Is Accumulation
Liability isn't something that happens when you get sued. Liability starts accumulating the moment your inaccessible website goes live.
Every day it remains inaccessible:
- Users with disabilities are being excluded
- Violations are compounding
- Evidence of negligence is accumulating
- Damages are multiplying
If a user was excluded from your website for 3 years due to accessibility failures, that's 3 years of evidence that your company knew (or should have known) about the problem and failed to fix it.
Knowledge Problem
The moment someone informs your company about an accessibility issue, your liability changes. You move from "didn't know" to "knew and didn't fix it."
A demand letter isn't the beginning of the problem. It's proof of the beginning.
Precedent and Enforcement
The Department of Justice is actively enforcing ADA compliance. Federal agencies send compliance letters. State attorneys general pursue cases. Private firms file suits.
Enforcement is accelerating, not slowing down.
Why Legal Should Own Website Accessibility
Risk Mitigation Function
Website accessibility compliance is fundamentally a legal risk mitigation function. It's no different from:
- Contract review
- Employment law compliance
- Privacy and data protection
- Regulatory compliance
Legal departments already manage these risks. Accessibility should be treated the same way.
The Fix Is Easier Than the Lawsuit
Here's the business case: fixing a website's accessibility issues costs far less than defending a lawsuit. Typical costs:
- Accessibility audit: $5K–$25K
- Remediation: $50K–$500K depending on site size
- Ongoing compliance: $10K–$50K annually
Compared to:
- Settlement: $50K–$500K+
- Legal fees: $100K–$500K+
- Remediation under duress: $100K–$1M+
- Reputational damage: Incalculable
Prevention is dramatically cheaper than litigation.
Competitive Advantage
The accessibility landscape is changing. Organizations are waking up to the liability. In 3–5 years, accessibility will be as expected as security audits.
Companies that address it proactively gain competitive advantage:
- Larger addressable market (16% more potential customers)
- Better SEO (accessibility improves search ranking)
- Reduced legal risk
- Better brand reputation
- Improved employee satisfaction (inclusive design culture)
Key Takeaways
- Corporate legal departments rigorously review marketing campaigns but overlook website accessibility entirely
- Your website reaches 1000x more people than a single marketing campaign—yet gets zero legal scrutiny
- Website accessibility violations are systematic, not isolated—thousands can exist simultaneously
- Accessibility lawsuits are accelerating: 4,500+ filed in 2024, expected to exceed 5,000 in 2025
- Legal knowledge gaps leave corporate liability unmanaged and unmitigated
- Insurance policies often don't cover accessibility discrimination claims
- Liability accumulates daily from the moment an inaccessible website goes live
- Fixing accessibility is far cheaper than defending a lawsuit
- Website accessibility compliance is fundamentally a legal risk management function
- Accessibility should receive the same legal oversight as marketing campaigns and HR policies