Schedule E · Accessibility statement
Accessibility
The standard this site is built to, how we check it, what we know still falls short, and exactly what to do if something gets in your way.
Last updated September 28, 2026
A document you cannot read is no use to you, and neither is a website. That applies to this one first.
1. The standard this site is built to
This site is built and tested to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 at Level AA, published by the W3C. Level AA is 55 separate success criteria covering how a page reads, how it works with a keyboard or a screen reader, how it behaves at large text sizes, and how its forms handle mistakes.
No statute sets a website standard for a small BC law firm today. We hold ours to it anyway, because a law firm that some clients cannot reach is not doing its job, and the people who most need a lawyer are often the ones a careless website shuts out.
2. What that means on this site
Structure
Every page has one main heading, headings in order beneath it, and real landmarks: a header, a main area, navigation and a footer. Lists are lists and buttons are buttons. The first key press on any page offers a link that skips straight to the content.
Keyboard
Everything that can be clicked can be reached and used with a keyboard alone. Groups of choices, like the matters on the home page, the days in the diary and the tabs of a client file, move with the arrow keys the way any set of radio buttons does. Escape closes the menu and any open definition. Wherever you are, an oxblood outline shows it, and the letterhead at the top of the screen never covers the item you are on.
Reading and contrast
Body text is dark ink on paper at 14 to 1. The lightest grey on the site measures 4.5 to 1 or better on every background it sits on, which is the AA line for ordinary text. Type is set in relative units, so your browser's text size setting works, and pages reflow to a single column at 320 pixels wide and at 200 percent zoom without text running off the side.
Tap targets
Buttons, links and choices are at least 44 pixels tall wherever a thumb is likely to use them, and nothing smaller than 24 pixels sits close enough to another control to be hit by mistake.
Motion
Nothing on this site plays on its own or loops. Text settles into place as a page opens, and a redrafted clause shows its old wording struck through for under a second before it clears. Turn on reduce motion in your device settings and the pages appear still and every redraft swaps at once. Nothing flashes.
Margin notes and defined terms
Each oxblood mark beside a clause is a real button that says whether its note is open. The Margin notes switch in the letterhead opens every note on the page at once, which helps if you use a magnifier or would rather not hunt for them. Legal words set in small caps open a short definition, and every one of them is also on the defined terms page.
Forms
The consultation brief asks for three things only: your matter, a name and an email. Every field has a visible label. Mistakes are named in words beside the field and in a summary at the top that takes you to each one, never by colour alone. There is no puzzle to solve and no time limit, you are never asked for the same thing twice, and the finished brief can be printed or saved to your calendar.
Images
Photographs carry a written description and a caption beneath them. No text sits on top of a photograph. Decorative marks are hidden from screen readers so they do not interrupt.
Colour settings
The site keeps its layout and its controls visible in Windows high contrast and other forced colour modes. It declares itself a light page, so a browser's automatic dark mode does not invert it into something unreadable.
3. How we check it
Before a change goes live, every page runs through automated checks: the axe rules for WCAG 2.2 AA with the tap target rule switched on, a contrast measurement of the text as it actually renders, a count of undersized targets, a check that keyboard focus never jumps backward, and the page at 320 pixels wide, at 130 percent text, in forced colours and with reduced motion. The main pages also run in Safari's engine. Each check is proven able to fail before its passing result is trusted.
Then we check by hand: a keyboard walk through the consultation brief, the estimate, the deadline check and the client file, and the pages zoomed and narrowed. Automated tools only see part of the problem, so their clean results are the floor, never the finish.
4. Where this site stands
These are the limits we know about today. If you find one we have missed, we would rather hear it than guess.
Screen readers
The site is built to the patterns screen readers handle well, but we have not yet finished a full pass with a screen reader on every page. Until we have, we list it here as open rather than claim it.
The smallest screens at the largest text
On a very narrow phone with text enlarged, a long heading word can break across two lines. Nothing is cut off, hidden or pushed off the side of the screen.
The sample file and the desk
The client file and our side of the desk are demonstrations. A document you upload to the sample file, and any brief you send, stays in your own browser and goes nowhere.
5. At the office
The Aldous Block has an elevator at the rear entrance off the alley. Tell us when you book and we will meet you there, or we will come to you. A first meeting can also happen by phone or video.
Any document we ask you to sign can come in large print, or be read aloud to you clause by clause first, and signing appointments are booked long enough that nobody rushes. You are welcome to bring someone with you. If you need an interpreter, tell us when you book and we will arrange one.
6. Found a barrier? Tell us
If any part of this site is hard to use, with assistive technology or without it, email reception@marlowefenn.ca or call (250) 555-0184. Tell us which page, what you were trying to do, and what you were using if you know. If a form here is the barrier, the phone and the email work without it.
A person reads every report the same business day. We fix the problem, check the fix with the same kind of setup that hit it, and then write back to tell you what changed.
Where a word on this site is a legal term, its meaning is on the defined terms page. For everything else, the office keeps Monday to Friday, 8:30 to 5:00.