Sued by Alberto R. Leal over your website?

Alberto R. Leal, Esq., P.A. is a Lake Worth, Florida law firm that files ADA website lawsuits in the Southern District of Florida, mostly against national retail chains. If your business was named in one, here's what the complaint says and what to do first.

This is a technical accessibility assessment, not legal advice, and automated testing cannot establish ADA compliance.

What the court records show

Between August 20 and November 2, 2026, Alberto R. Leal, Esq., P.A. filed at least 15 ADA website cases in the Southern District of Florida, by our count of the public dockets on CourtListener, all for the same plaintiff. Most were filed in batches of three or four on the same day. Almost all name a national chain with stores in Florida: fashion and luxury brands, eyewear and footwear companies, beauty and vitamin stores, a furniture maker, a farm-supply chain, a seasonal costume store, a hearing-aid company. The firm also files many ADA cases about physical buildings, such as plazas and condominiums; we didn't count those. Only one of the website complaints is public so far, against a beauty retailer, and we read it.

What the complaint says

The complaint is short, 9 pages, and reads like a template:

• The plaintiff lives in Florida, is legally blind and uses screen reader software.
• He says he made several attempts to use the website and has used it in the past, and that he intends to use it again once it's accessible.
• The link to a physical store is central. The complaint says the website gives store hours, addresses, phone numbers and the products sold in the stores, so the website and the stores are "integrated." Because of the barriers, it says, he was denied information that would help him visit a store.
• The barriers are general, not page by page. It lists five, "including but not limited to": images and other non-text content without a text alternative, structure that is only visual, a reading order a screen reader can't follow, page titles that don't describe the page, and images not explained to a screen reader.
• It names WCAG 2.2 AA as the standard.
• It doesn't mention an expert, a tester or a notice letter before the lawsuit.

It makes one claim, under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

What it asks the court for

• A declaration that the business was violating the ADA when the case was filed.
• An order to bring the website into compliance, with the court keeping the case open for a period to make sure it stays that way.
• Hiring an accessibility consultant "acceptable to Plaintiff" to help bring the website to WCAG 2.2 AA.
• Regular accessibility training for everyone who works on the website or its content.
• Regular automated audits, and regular testing by people with disabilities.
• The plaintiff's attorneys' fees and costs.

What any of this means for your business is a question for your attorney. How these lawsuits work, in plain English.

Common questions

Is the lawsuit real?

A filed case has a case number, such as 1:26-cv-26307. You can look it up free on CourtListener or on PACER, the federal courts' own system. If the case is there, it's real.

The complaint doesn't say which pages are broken. How do we know what to fix?

It doesn't, so you have to find the barriers yourself. The five it lists are common and easy to check: images and icons with no text, headings and lists that are only styled to look that way, content that reads out of order, and page titles that are all the same. An automated scan finds most of the first and last of these. A person with a screen reader finds the rest.

We only sell online. Does this apply to us?

This complaint leans on the link between the website and physical stores in Florida. Whether that matters for a business without stores is a legal question. Florida's federal courts are in the Eleventh Circuit, and a Florida attorney can tell you how it treats websites.

Will an automated scan find these problems?

Some of them. A scan finds images with no text, empty or repeated page titles and many structure problems. Reading order and whether images are described in a way that makes sense need a person working through the site with a screen reader. How we test, and what a scan can't tell you.

First steps

1. Write down the date you were served and talk to an attorney. A lawsuit has a short, fixed deadline to respond. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away.
2. Check the five barriers on your own pages. Start with the home page, a product page, the store locator and checkout.
3. Get the technical facts. Find out which of these barriers exist today, and what else a scan finds. The complaint says its list is not the full list.
4. Fix the real issues in the site itself. Step-by-step fixes: WordPress, Shopify.
5. Keep dated records of what was wrong, what you changed and when.

How we counted

On November 9, 2026 we searched CourtListener for federal civil-rights cases coded "ADA – Other" that list Alberto R. Leal, Esq., P.A. as plaintiff's counsel and were filed from August 1 to November 9, 2026, and kept the ones against a company with a consumer website. Cases against buildings, plazas and property owners aren't counted. Cases that haven't reached CourtListener aren't counted either, so the real number may be higher. We read the one complaint that was available as a public document. We have no connection to the firm or its clients. If anything here is wrong, tell us and we'll correct it.

Sued by a different firm? See Gottlieb & Associates, Joseph & Norinsberg, Usher Law Group, East End Trial Group, Nye, Stirling, Hale, Miller & Sweet, ADA Legal Team, Mendez Law Offices, Roderick V. Hannah and Pelayo Duran, Horowitz Law, Shaked Law Group, Equal Access Law Group.