Accessibility at DraftCounsel

Our commitment

Our engineering target is WCAG 2.2 Level AA. We also track against WCAG 2.1 Level AA (the DOJ Title II reference standard), and map to Section 508 / VPAT 2.5 — an ACR is available on request.

Our engineering target is WCAG 2.2 Level AA. Automated and inspection-based evaluation currently finds no known serious or critical barriers across the route census; open items and the barriers above are tracked publicly and re-checked every quarter. This is a statement of measured status and ongoing work, not a certification.

What we have built

• —Accessibility is built into the code, not bolted on. Screen readers, keyboard navigation, and your browser and system settings work directly with the site.
• —Automated testing (axe-core) runs on every code change across the whole route census and its interaction states — a change that introduces a serious or critical barrier fails the build before it ships.
• —Keyboard-first design: the review desk, the command palette, and every form are operable without a mouse, and each meaningful action is announced to assistive technology.
• —Your device settings are honored: 400% zoom, high-contrast and forced-colors modes, reduced motion, and increased text spacing are all tested and supported.
• —A first-party Display & accessibility control in the header lets you set text size, contrast, motion, spacing, and link underlines — built from our own design tokens, with no third-party script.
• —We do not use an accessibility overlay or widget. Overlays are not required by any law and can interfere with the assistive technology you already use; our content-security policy blocks third-party scripts by design.
• —We keep an honest, public record: a findings ledger, an evidence ledger, and quarterly re-evaluation — including the barriers we have not yet resolved.

Prefer a visible control? The accessibility button in the header — the person-in-a-circle icon — opens text-size, contrast, motion, and spacing settings that save on your device.

How we test

Evaluated with automated tooling (axe-core, WCAG 2.0/2.1/2.2 A and AA plus best-practice rules) and manual code and keyboard inspection, across the full public route census, in light and dark themes, at desktop and mobile widths, including 400% reflow, text-spacing, and forced-colors adaptations, and the generated Word document families.

This evaluation is based on automated testing and expert code and keyboard inspection of release 2026-08 (dc-release). Formal sessions with assistive-technology users — NVDA with Chrome, and VoiceOver with Safari (macOS and iOS) — are scheduled; until they are recorded we do not claim them, and this page will name them when they are done.

What we know is not yet perfect

Naming the gaps is part of the work. Each has a usable alternative today.

Court-published PDF forms

The courts’ own blank forms may be untagged. Our guided questionnaire and the on-screen result are the accessible path, and we preserve the form’s field tooltips where the court provided them.

Downloadable kit PDFs

These carry real text and a document language, but not a full tag tree (a limitation of the PDF library). The on-screen version and the Word (.docx) downloads — which do carry heading structure — are the accessible primaries.

Workspace, artifact, and matter PDF downloads

These PDFs embed a Unicode serif font, so typographic and multilingual text renders as written, and any character the font cannot draw is refused and named rather than dropped. They carry real text and a document language but not a full tag tree; the Word (.docx) download, which carries heading structure and every character, is the accessible and faithful version.

Print copies of reports

The web page is the accessible version of every report; PDFs are labeled as print copies.

Payment pages

Checkout is handled by our payment processor on their own pages; we review their accessibility documentation before enabling it, and the hand-off on our side is in scope.

Screen-reader test sessions

Formal sessions with assistive-technology users are scheduled. Until they are recorded, our conformance evidence is automated testing and expert inspection, and we say so plainly.

Compatibility & the conformance report

The site is designed for current versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari, with their built-in and add-on assistive technologies. Our planned formal test matrix is NVDA with Chrome and VoiceOver with Safari on macOS and iOS.

A full Accessibility Conformance Report (VPAT 2.5) is maintained for procurement and is available on request through the barrier-report form above. Our public transparency report and trust center carry the surrounding evidence.