On July 1, 2026 the American Psychological Association published an article about using animals in therapy. You can find it here. I’m a lawyer, not a doctor, so I don’t have anything to say about most of the article, which deals with how animals can be used by psychologists when interacting with patients. I
Latest from Accessibility Defense
SBA v DOJ – who’s calling the shots on website accessibility?
On June 23 the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy called on the Department of Justice to go beyond its recent one year pause on Title II website regulations and simply scrap them entirely. See, Advocacy Recommends. The legal justification is astonishing – SBA claims that under the latest Supreme Court authorities, Loper Bright Enterprises
HUD’s radical change of position on ESA’s
On May 23, 2026, HUD’s Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity announced a dramatic change in HUD’s view of accommodation requests for emotional support animals.² Stripped of the usual bureaucratic word swamp the point of the announcement is simple. HUD will not find reasonable cause to believe discrimination occurred for any case involving
Emotional Support Dogs again?
The March 25, 2026 decision from the Connecticut Supreme Court in Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities v Mansions takes a small but significant step toward limiting misuse of the Fair Housing Act as a way to avoid pet deposits or “no pets” rules. For full disclosure purposes, I represented the winning landlord throughout
ADA 30 Days to Comply Act – an additional thought.
I say “an additional thought” because while I was thinking about what to say concerning the newly introduced ADA 30 Days to Comply Act William Goren wrote his own analysis of the law, which you can read here – Goren Blog. Briefly, the law imposes a 30 day notice requirement as a prerequisite to
What the ADA and FHA are all about.
On December 5 (2025) I argued a fair housing case before the Connecticut Supreme Court. The details are important, but not for this blog. I say that because during the argument it occurred to me that it is easy, while cataloging and describing all the trees in the forest to forget that it is a
Emotional Support Animals, Fact, Fantasy and Fiction
My webinar Emotional Support Animals Under the FHA – Fact, Fantasy, and Fraud (Update) is now available live from Lawline. The news covered in my last blog and other actions by the Trump Administration have important consequences for landlords, management companies, owners associations and other housing providers even while the underlying law and science remain
Disability Rights under the Trump Administration.
Coming on the heels of my presentation of this title (available at Trump and Disability Rights) HUD and Senator Elizabeth Warren have both made significant announcements about fair housing enforcement.
On September 17 HUD announced that it was withdrawing a number of guidance documents, including FHEO 2013-01 and 2020-01 and concerning assistance animals. These
Coming soon – The Trump Administration and Disability Rights
I’ve been busy preparing for my upcoming webinar on the Trump Administration’s approach to disability rights, so it seemed like a good time to publicize it. You can find all the details at Access Denied. If you attend you’ll find out what is happening behind the headlines as I sort out the intended and unintended
FHA tester standing – the beginning of the beginning of the end?
Even after the Supreme Court’s decision in Transunion¹ and the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Laufer v Mann Hospitality,² challenging the standing of a Fair Housing Act tester in Texas has been a hit or miss proposition depending very much on which District Judge decided the case. It has been quite possible to file almost identical motions to