Oh ADA lawyers are a dime a dozen. There’s entire cottage industries of finding ADA violations to sue over. The issue is more finding companies to sue that can’t afford to fight back.

I don’t know about that. When I was 18, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and received a sudden and unexpected demotion from a job with a small regional restaurant franchise that was previously flourishing, and then found myself unemployed a few weeks later, just days before my benefits package was due to be activated.

I contacted several attorneys, none of whom would consider taking the case, or even bother to discuss the details with me. One of them told me that, at least in North Carolina, an employer would effectively have to get on the stand and explicitly confess taking adverse actions against me specifically because I had been diagnosed with MS. Any other remotely plausible excuse would provide them with all the cover necessary.

It was only much later that I learned that I would have had to have filed a complaint with the EEOC and NLRB within 180-days, and allow them to investigate my claims fully before authorizing such a lawsuit to begin with, as without such a determination I could not file the suit anyway. None of the attorneys I consulted even mentioned this absolutely critical first step, which suggests that they had even less faith in a successful outcome.

Maybe it’s different for facilities and regulatory enforcement, but in my experience, at least for labor, the protections are incredibly weak.

This is more ADA title I. Typically for Title III ADA lawyers troll small businesses looking for accessibility issues like lack of ramp, and have a stable of disabled clients who will file against the businesses. Since the businesses can’t generally afford to context or pay fines they’ll settle quickly and remediate, or a non trivial amount of the time get run out of business (if for instance the remediation costs a non trivial amount to pull off). I’m not judging bad or good, here, it is what it is and perhaps it’s the right outcome to allow for general accessibility.