Accessibility

Accessibility at OpenVerdict.

We build for WCAG 2.1 level AA. We are not fully conformant, and this page says where we are short. It is written by the people who maintain the site, not by an auditor.

What we target

Our target is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1, level AA, for openverdict.net, The CourtRoom platform, and every page under OpenVerdict for Education, including the pages a student reaches from an assignment link without an account.

We keep a written conformance report in the shape of a VPAT 2.5, criterion by criterion, so a procurement office or a disability services office can read what we support and what we do not instead of taking a claim on trust. Ask us at openverdictofficial@gmail.com and we will send the current version. It is self-authored by the people who wrote the site. It is not an independent audit, and we do not describe it as one.

What we have tested, and how

Keyboard only

Every student screen driven from the keyboard alone, with the mouse unplugged: the join page, the first vote, the case room, the reasoning boxes and the submit button. There is now a visible focus ring on every button, link, field and slider, which there was not before September 2026.

Screen reader markup

The student screens now carry the markup a screen reader depends on: landmarks, one heading per page, names on every control, pressed state on the vote buttons, and a live region that announces when the room opens and when the second vote is called. We have checked that markup with automated tools and the browser's accessibility tree. We have not yet run a full session with NVDA or VoiceOver, and we do not claim to have until we do.

Contrast

An automated audit of every education and live screen in both the light and the dark theme, measuring each piece of text against what is actually painted behind it. The most recent run reported no failures against the 4.5:1 and 3:1 thresholds.

We also run an automated check on every build that the student pages have one page heading, a main landmark, a name on every button and link, a label on every field, and a keyboard path from the top of the page to the vote and the submit button. Automated checks catch a minority of real problems. They are a floor, not a result.

What is known to be wrong

This list is the point of the page. Everything on it is something we have found, can reproduce, and have not fixed yet. It was last reviewed on September 19, 2026.

The case tabs are not a keyboard tab widget.
Story, Overview, Evidence, The Floor and Verdicts are plain buttons in a row. Tab moves through them one by one and they all work, but the arrow keys do not move between them the way a screen reader user is taught to expect.
Found September 19, 2026
The document and opinion viewers do not hold focus.
Opening a court filing or an opinion puts a full screen panel over the case. It is not announced as a dialog, focus is not moved into it or trapped inside it, and Escape does not close it. Keyboard focus can wander behind the panel into the page underneath.
Found September 19, 2026
The sign in panel and the assign to a class panel have the same problem.
Both are overlays built before we had a dialog pattern. They can be reached and used with a keyboard, but they do not announce themselves, and closing them means finding the close button rather than pressing Escape.
Found September 19, 2026
There is no skip to content link.
On the platform pages a keyboard user passes the whole header, the search and the account controls before reaching the case. The pages do have main and nav landmarks, so a screen reader can jump; a sighted keyboard user cannot.
Found September 19, 2026
The conflict graph has no text alternative.
The network diagram on one case draws relationships between a judge, the parties and their disclosed interests as a picture with no equivalent in words. The same underlying facts are listed in the financial disclosure rows above it, which is not the same thing as a description of the diagram.
Found September 19, 2026
The instructor projector view has not been tested with a screen reader.
It is a screen designed to be read from the back of a lecture hall and driven by one person standing at the front. Every control on it is a real button with a name, and the arrow key shortcuts have on screen equivalents, but we have not run it with assistive technology and we are not going to claim it works until we have.
Found September 19, 2026
We have not tested with a real screen reader yet.
Our testing so far is keyboard only use and automated checks of the accessibility tree. A full pass with NVDA on Windows and VoiceOver on macOS is next, then VoiceOver on iOS and TalkBack on Android, which matter most for a platform students meet on a phone. JAWS and Dragon are after that.
Found September 19, 2026

If something is not on this list and it is stopping you, it is because we have not found it. Tell us and it goes on the list the same week.

Parts we do not control

Three things on this site are served by somebody else. We chose them, so we are answerable for the choice, but we cannot change their code. Where one of them blocks you, there is another way to do the same thing and we will do it with you.

The donation form: Donations are taken by Zeffy, in a frame we do not author. We have not audited it and cannot fix it. If it does not work for you, write to us and we will take a gift another way.
Embedded video: A few cases embed a YouTube player for footage that is part of the record. Captions on that footage are whatever the original uploader provided, which is often nothing. We do not add captions to third party video, and any case that depends on a video also carries the same facts in the written record.
Court records from CourtListener: Filings and opinions come from CourtListener and the federal courts. Many are scans of paper with no text layer at all, which no screen reader can read. We mark those as scanned where we know, and we will read one to you or get you a text version if you ask.

Tell us

Write to openverdictofficial@gmail.com. Tell us the page, what you were trying to do, and what happened. If you know what you are using, the browser and the assistive technology help, but do not let not knowing stop you writing.

We answer within five business days. That is a reply from a person, not a ticket number. If the fix is small it usually ships in the same week. If it is not small we will tell you what we are doing and when, and we will not tell you it is fixed until it is.

We are a volunteer nonprofit with no paid staff, and we would rather say that than promise a response time we cannot keep.

Instructors and institutions: our conformance report and our answers to a standard accessibility questionnaire are available on request for a procurement or accessibility review.

About this statement

This statement was written on September 19, 2026 by the maintainers of OpenVerdict Inc. It describes openverdict.net, The CourtRoom platform, and OpenVerdict for Education as they stood on that date. It is not the result of an independent audit and it does not claim full conformance with WCAG 2.1 level AA. It is reviewed whenever the known issues list changes, and the date above changes with it.