Legal Project Manager — Managing Accessibility Compliance

In this tutorial, you will learn about Legal Project Manager. We cover key concepts, practical examples, and best practices to help you master this topic.

A legal project manager for Accessibility coordinates audits, remediation, documentation, training, and monitoring across teams, ensuring the organization meets WCAG AA and applicable legal requirements in every jurisdiction.

What You'll Learn

You will learn how to manage accessibility Compliance as an ongoing program, the role of a compliance project manager, key processes, and how to track progress.

Why It Matters

Accessibility compliance is not a one-time project. It requires ongoing coordination across legal, engineering, design, and content teams. A structured management approach ensures nothing falls through the cracks.

Real-World Use

DodaTech assigns an accessibility program manager who maintains the compliance roadmap, tracks audit results, coordinates remediation sprints, and reports progress to executives quarterly.

flowchart LR
  A[Assess] --> B[Plan]
  B --> C[Remediate]
  C --> D[Document]
  D --> E[Train]
  E --> F[Monitor]
  F --> A
  A:::current
  classDef current fill:#f90,color:#fff,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px

The Compliance Lifecycle

Assess

Conduct automated and manual accessibility audits. Identify WCAG violations and legal requirements applicable to your organization.

Plan

Prioritize issues by severity and legal risk. Create a remediation roadmap with timelines and owners.

Remediate

Fix identified issues in priority order. Use development sprints for technical fixes. Update content for plain language and alt text.

Document

Maintain VPAT documentation, conformance claims, audit reports, and remediation records. Documentation is your legal defense.

Train

Train all team members on their accessibility responsibilities. Include new hire orientation and ongoing refresher training.

Monitor

Run automated scans regularly. Conduct periodic manual audits. Monitor for new WCAG versions and legal changes.

Key Processes

Issue Tracking

Track accessibility issues like any other product issue. Use your existing project management tools with appropriate labels and prioritization.

Reporting

Report accessibility metrics to leadership regularly. Include violation counts, remediation progress, and legal risk assessment.

function createComplianceDashboard(issues, totalCriteria) {
  const bySeverity = { critical: 0, serious: 0, moderate: 0, minor: 0 };
  issues.forEach(i => bySeverity[i.severity]++);

  const fixed = issues.filter(i => i.status === 'fixed').length;
  const inProgress = issues.filter(i => i.status === 'in-progress').length;

  return {
    totalIssues: issues.length,
    fixed,
    inProgress,
    remaining: issues.length - fixed,
    bySeverity,
    complianceScore: `${((fixed / issues.length) * 100).toFixed(0)}%`,
    legalRisk: bySeverity.critical > 0 ? 'High' : bySeverity.serious > 0 ? 'Medium' : 'Low'
  };
}

const dashboard = createComplianceDashboard([
  { severity: 'critical', status: 'open' },
  { severity: 'serious', status: 'in-progress' },
  { severity: 'moderate', status: 'fixed' }
], 86);

console.log(dashboard);

Expected output:

{
  totalIssues: 3,
  fixed: 1,
  inProgress: 1,
  remaining: 2,
  bySeverity: { critical: 1, serious: 1, moderate: 1, minor: 0 },
  complianceScore: '33%',
  legalRisk: 'High'
}

Tools for Compliance Management

Accessibility management platforms like Deque's Accessible Platform or Level Access can help. Spreadsheets work for smaller organizations.

Common Mistakes

1. No Dedicated Program Manager

Compliance without ownership drifts. Assign someone to manage the accessibility program.

2. Treating Compliance as a Developer-Only Task

Legal compliance involves procurement, content, design, and training. Developers cannot do it alone.

3. No Regular Cadence

Quarterly audits and monthly monitoring should be scheduled. Ad hoc compliance fails.

4. Not Tracking Metrics

What gets measured gets done. Track violation counts, remediation rates, and training completion.

5. Ignoring Procurement Compliance

Your organization buys third-party tools. Ensure purchased tools meet your accessibility requirements.

6. No Executive Reporting

Executives need to understand compliance status and legal risk. Regular reports keep accessibility visible.

7. Not Including Accessibility in Contracts

When hiring vendors or contractors, include accessibility requirements in the contract.

Practice Questions

1. What are the six phases of the compliance lifecycle?

Assess, plan, remediate, document, train, and monitor.

2. Why is documentation important for legal defense?

Documentation proves good faith efforts. Courts look favorably on organizations that can show they took accessibility seriously.

3. What metrics should be tracked for accessibility compliance?

Violation counts by severity, remediation progress, training completion, and audit coverage.

4. Who should manage the accessibility compliance program?

A dedicated accessibility program manager or a person with a portion of their time allocated to compliance management.

5. Challenge: Create a compliance management plan for your organization. Include the six phases, owners, timelines, and metrics.

FAQ

Mini Project

Design a compliance management dashboard for a mid-size company. Include the metrics you would track, the reporting cadence, and how you would present the information to executives.

What's Next

Complete the Laws Project to apply everything you have learned in this module. Build a compliance tracker and legal requirements document.