Does ADA Title II Apply to a State Bar?

I asked the State Bar of Georgia this question in writing and asked for a one word answer. I never got one. What I got instead was three different positions in eight weeks. This page lays out what the law says, what the courts have said, and what the Bar said, so you can read all three next to each other.

The disclaimer, up front. I am not a lawyer. Nothing here is legal advice. Every legal source below is linked so you can read the original yourself, and where the courts disagree, I say so.

What the statute says

Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act covers public entities. The operative sentence is short:

“no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity.”

42 U.S.C. § 12132

The implementing regulations sit at 28 C.F.R. Part 35. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794, covers programs receiving federal financial assistance and runs on a parallel track.

Sources: ADA Title II Regulations, ADA.gov and ADA Update: A Primer for State and Local Governments.

What the courts have said about licensing and bar bodies

The Southeast ADA Center, one of the federally funded ADA centers, collects the case law on Title II and professional licensing. The short version is that courts have generally treated licensing boards as Title II entities, because they are empowered by state governments to provide benefits, services and programs.

Cases that reached that result include:

• Bartlett v. New York State Board of Law Examiners (Second Circuit). An applicant was entitled to testing accommodations, such as extended time, where a disability substantially limits a major life activity.
• Clark v. Virginia Board of Bar Examiners (E.D. Va.). A mental health question asking about treatment within the previous five years violated the ADA.
• Ellen S. v. Florida Board of Bar Examiners (S.D. Fla.). Questions about treatment for an emotional disorder violated Title II.
• Bonnette v. D.C. Court of Appeals. Bar examination providers must provide accessible accommodations, including assistive technology such as screen reading software.

The distinction a Bar lawyer would raise first

There is a gap in that list and it is better to name it than to let someone else name it for me. Every case above is about getting admitted or getting licensed. Bar examiners, application questions, testing accommodations, a nursing board. None of them is about a bar’s disciplinary arm, which is the part of the State Bar of Georgia in this record.

So I am not going to claim those cases decide this question. They decide the threshold one. What makes a licensing body a public entity under Title II is not which program it happens to run. It is that a state empowered it to run one at all. Title II reaches the services, programs and activities of a public entity, and the statute does not draw a line between the program that admits a lawyer and the program that disciplines one. Whether a court would apply that reasoning to the State Bar of Georgia specifically, I do not know, and I am not the person to answer it.

What I can report is narrower and it does not require a court. The Bar put someone in the coordinator role, granted accommodations under it, approved a request under it, and then said the obligation does not reach it.

The other side of it, which I am not going to hide

The same source lists a case that went the other way. In Applicants v. Texas State Board of Law Examiners (W.D. Tex.), the court upheld specific mental illness questions as justified to protect the public.

There is a further counterweight and an honest page has to say so. In Guttman v. Khalsa and Turner v. National Council of State Boards of Nursing, the Tenth Circuit held that states retain sovereign immunity from Title II damages claims in the professional licensing context. That is a limit on what a person can recover in federal court. It is not a statement that the access obligation does not exist.

So the honest summary is this. The weight of the case law treats state licensing and bar bodies as covered by Title II. Whether a particular entity is covered, and what a person can actually recover, depends on the entity, the state, and the circuit. That is a question for a lawyer, and I am not one.

Source: Title II of the ADA Applied to State and Local Professional Licensing, Southeast ADA Center.

What the State Bar of Georgia said

I asked one question, in writing, and asked for a yes or a no. Here is what came back, in order.

The Bar’s stated position on ADA coverage, in its own words, by date

Date	Who	The position
May 4, 2026	ADA Coordinator	Accommodations granted in writing, including written communication and accessible electronic formats.
May 12, 2026	Deputy General Counsel	The Bar is “not a public entity subject to the ADA.” Also, the Bar is “not required to have a published ADA Coordinator.”
May 13, 2026	ADA Coordinator	“The State Bar has approved your accommodation request.”
May 29, 2026	State Bar	The Bar is “not subject to Title II.”

Read that column downward. On May 4 the Bar granted ADA accommodations. On May 12 it said it was not a public entity. On May 13 it approved an accommodation request. On May 29 it said it was not subject to Title II.

An institution that is not covered by Title II does not need an ADA Coordinator, does not need to grant accommodations, and does not need to approve accommodation requests. This one did all three, while saying it did not have to.

The full moving target, dated . Granted, then taken away . Read the May 12 denial

Why the answer matters more than the argument

I did not ask the Bar to concede liability. I asked a threshold question so I would know which door to use.

If Title II applies, there is supposed to be a coordinator, a published grievance procedure for disability complaints, and a route for effective communication. If it does not apply, then I needed to know that on day one so I could go somewhere else. Either answer would have been useful. Eight weeks of both answers was not.

That is the practical cost of an unanswered threshold question, and it lands entirely on the disabled person, who is the one least able to absorb it.

What other bars do with the same question

The Florida Bar publishes an accessibility page telling people with disabilities exactly how to request a reasonable accommodation to file a misconduct complaint against an attorney, with named departments and phone numbers on the page. California and North Carolina publish their Bar ADA coordinators by name.

The State Bar of Georgia’s own 2011 English grievance form told a disabled person to contact the ADA Coordinator at (404) 527-8720 or (800) 334-6865. That form is still hosted on one of the Bar’s section websites. The Spanish grievance form carries the same notice. The current English form does not.

So the Bar published an ADA Coordinator notice, dropped it from the English form, kept it on the Spanish one, and then wrote that it is “not required to have a published ADA Coordinator.” On May 26, 2026 it acknowledged the gap in writing: “I have also noted your concerns regarding the differences in the Spanish and English forms.”

The full comparison is here.

If you are asking this question about your own state

Two free federal routes accept ADA complaints about state and local government, and neither requires you to resolve the coverage question first.

• The U.S. Department of Justice ADA complaint route. ADA.gov says its initial review may take up to three months.
• Your state ADA Coordinator’s office. In Georgia that is the State ADA Coordinator’s Office, which answered my questions about a different institution point by point, in writing, and which is on this site because it did.

The full plain language map of the federal materials is here, with every link going to the government’s own page.

Where this stands

On June 30, 2026 the State Bar dismissed every grievance. The coverage question was never answered in one word, or in any number of words that stayed the same for a month.

Corrections: this page is built from published federal materials, from published case summaries by a federally funded ADA center, and from correspondence I received. If any fact here is incomplete or inaccurate, identify the page, the sentence, and the supporting document, and I will review and correct the record.

I have invited the State Bar of Georgia to identify any inaccuracy on this page. As of the date above, it has identified none.

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