President’s Column

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN ADA Website Issues

Late last year we issued a banker alert about an effort by a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, law firm to extort money from small businesses, including banks, alleging various violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) with respect to the businesses’ and banks’ website. The allegations are that the specific website is not accessible by hearing or visually impaired consumers. We are constantly updating our webpage with new information on this attack. Unfortunately, we are seeing more and more of our banks on the receiving end of these demand letters. A lawsuit has been filed in State District Court in Fort Worth, Texas in which both the Texas Bankers Association (TBA) and the Independent Bankers Association of Texas (IBAT) have joined forces to attack the ADA website compliance issue. The lawsuit seeks injunctive relief and attorney fees, not traditional monetary damages. What’s really interesting is the TBA/IBAT petition alleges the law firm has committed a criminal offense of “Barratry and Solicitation of Professional Employment.” Under Texas law, “barratry” means an attorney offers anything of value to a prospective client to obtain employment as counsel for that prospective client. We are researching this issue to see if this same course of action is possible in Arkansas. Specifically, the petition alleges that the law firm and the individual defendants offered a thing of value (i.e., a release of purported ADA claims) to the Banks with the intent to obtain in return payment from the banks for the rendition of legal services. They were demanding employment as their attorney in exchange for the release of their claims. Because this is hitting so many of our banks, we are running a copy of a recent article from the ABA Banking Journal with the latest information on a national basis. Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions you may have. We will continue to stay on top of this issue.

PRESIDENT & CEO BILL HOLMES

BILL HOLMES PRESIDENT/CEO 501.978.3602 | bill.holmes@arkbankers.org ABA STAFF

CARLA BRINKLEY VP/CONTROLLER 501.978.3608 | carla.brinkley@arkbankers.org

AVA F. ROBERTS VP/DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT RELATIONS 501.978.3606 | ava.roberts@arkbankers.org

JESSICA SAHENE MARKETING COORDINATOR 501.978.3609 | jessica.sahene@arkbankers.org

HEATHER HAILE COMMUNICATIONS INTERN 501.978.3603 | marketing@arkbankers.org

BARRY JACKSON SVP/COO 501.978.3613 | barry.jackson@arkbankers.org

KAMI T. COLEMAN VP/PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT 501.978.3614 | kami.coleman@arkbankers.org

TRACI LOGSDON DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS 501.978.3603 | traci.logsdon@arkbankers.org

BRENDA SCARBROUGH PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR 501.978.3607 | brenda.scarbrough@arkbankers.org