Ontario AODA Compliance

AODA Compliance for Ontario Law Firms

Your clients expect accessibility — and Ontario law requires it. Meet AODA without the compliance headache.

Fines for law firms that ignore AODA: $100,000/day for organizations, $50,000/day for individuals

Ontario law firms face heightened scrutiny on accessibility: clients with disabilities have a right to barrier-free access to legal services, both in person and online. AODA compliance protects your firm from fines and demonstrates professional duty of care.

What AODA requires from law firms

Under Ontario Reg. 191/11 and Reg. 429/07

Accessible client intake forms

Online intake forms must have labelled fields, keyboard access, and proper error handling — a WCAG 2.0 AA requirement.

Accessible PDF documents

Retainers, NDAs, and information packages shared digitally must be tagged PDF or have an accessible alternative.

Staff accessibility training

Legal staff must be trained on the Customer Service Standard. Firms with 20+ employees must also complete the Employment Standard training and track records.

Annual compliance report

Firms with 50+ employees must file an accessibility report with the Ontario government by January 1 each year.

Published accessibility statement

Your website must include an accessibility statement with a contact method for reporting barriers.

Common WCAG violations for law firms

AODACheck catches all of these automatically

Contact and intake forms with unlabelled fields

PDFs without tags (not readable by screen readers)

Low contrast text on lawyer profile pages

No accessibility statement on firm website

Missing keyboard navigation on modal dialogs

How AODACheck covers every requirement

One platform. All five AODA tools.

Website Scanner

Scans your site against WCAG 2.0 AA. Catches every violation with severity ranking and an AI-generated fix.

Compliance Checklist

All 23 AODA requirements across 3 standards, mapped to the exact Ontario regulation section.

Staff Training Tracker

Logs who has been trained, flags new hires, and alerts when annual re-training is overdue.

Accessibility Statement

Generates and hosts your legally required statement at a permanent public URL.

Annual Report

Calculates your compliance score and produces a print-ready PDF for January 1 filing.

AODA questions for law firms

Are law firms required to comply with AODA?

Yes. AODA applies to all organizations in Ontario that provide services to the public or employ people in Ontario — which includes every law firm.

Do we need to file an annual report?

Firms with 50 or more employees must file an accessibility compliance report with the Ontario government by January 1 each year. AODACheck generates this report automatically from your compliance data.

How does AODA affect client documents?

Any documents you share digitally — retainers, NDAs, information packages — must be accessible. This means tagged PDFs, or an accessible HTML/Word alternative.

What is the training requirement for lawyers and staff?

All staff must complete the Customer Service Standard training. HR and management staff need the Employment Standard. Lawyers who produce written materials need the Information & Communications Standard. AODACheck's training tracker manages all of this.

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