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From Tennessee to Oregon: How lawyers turned the ADA into a ‘shakedown business model’

A Tennessee law firm paid people with disabilities to visit targeted businesses, then sent demand letters threatening to sue the owner if they did not comply.

Kyle Iboshi (KGW)

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Published: 12:27 PM PDT August 8, 2024
Updated: 10:11 AM PDT August 9, 2024

Conner Slevin got an unexpected message on Facebook in June of 2022. A man in Texas, who shares mutual friends, reached out with an offer. He encouraged Slevin to help with a project aimed at making businesses more accessible for people with disabilities.

“This seemed like an opportunity to do something good,” said Slevin, 34, who was paralyzed from the shoulders down in a beach accident in 2020.

The Facebook message explained that each month, a lawyer would provide Slevin with a list of two or three businesses in the Portland area. Slevin would have to visit each location, take a couple photos and buy a Coke or some other inexpensive item. In exchange, the out-of-state lawyer would pay Slevin $200 per visit.

Slevin, who lives in Northeast Portland, had questions about the operation. He also found it odd that many of the businesses he was sent to appeared to be owned or operated by minorities.

“I was starting to put together the pieces,” Slevin said.

Credit: KGW
Conner Slevin thought his attorneys would use the ADA to improve accessibility.

In May, a KGW investigation confirmed his suspicions. He quit the operation and asked to no longer be associated with the lawyers who sent dozens of demand letters to small businesses in the Portland-area threatening to sue if they didn’t bring their property into compliance with the ADA and pay attorney fees of roughly $10,000.

A disproportionate number of the ADA lawsuits — about half — involved Asian-owned businesses, according to court records, state filings and interviews.

“I realized that these people are not representing me in a way that I agree with,” said Slevin. “I’m a tool in their operation.”

Over the past three months, KGW has spoken with more than 40 people directly involved with or targeted by the operation run out of the Tennessee law firm Wampler, Carroll, Wilson & Sanderson.

The Wampler firm, along with attorney B.J. Wade of Memphis, follow a playbook. They find people with disabilities willing to visit businesses to help identify ADA violations. Then, they hire a local lawyer who sends the business a letter threatening to sue and attaching a boilerplate complaint. The demand letter offers an alternative, if the property owner pays roughly $10,000 in “lieu of attorney’s fees” and brings its property into ADA compliance, the lawyer won’t sue the business.

“We have pursued over 4,000 of these cases across the country and in 90% of cases, we have been successful in requiring the property owners to get in compliance with the ADA,” B.J. Wade wrote in a text message to Slevin on June 3.

If that number is correct, a settlement of $10,000 in 4,000 cases would generate $40 million in attorney fees. Even if the settlement amounts were less, the attorneys would still pocket millions.  

Wade did not respond to KGW’s request for comment for this story.

“It’s a business model. It’s a shakedown business model,” said attorney Ken Burger, who is defending an ADA case against the Wampler firm in Tennessee. “These attorneys are working off the backs of disabled souls who have enough problems in their lives. They’re being exploited.”

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