ADA Discrimination Intake: How to Qualify Americans With Disabilities Act Cases on the First Call

The EEOC received 19,291 ADA Title I charges in fiscal year 2023. That number does not count Title II or Title III claims, state analog claims, or the callers who reached your intake line, spent four minutes talking, and then heard “let me check with the attorney” before never calling back.

ADA cases fail at intake more often than almost any other practice area. Not because the facts are bad. Because whoever picks up the phone does not know the right questions to ask in the right order.

Why ADA Cases Demand a Different Intake Approach

Personal injury intake is relatively binary: was there an incident, was there injury, was there liability? ADA intake is a layered analysis involving statutory coverage, disability definition, accommodation history, and employer response. Miss one layer and you either sign a case you cannot win or decline one worth six figures.

There are three distinct ADA tracks, and the caller almost never knows which one applies to them. Whoever answers the phone needs to identify the track within the first ninety seconds and pivot to the correct qualification script.

Here is what makes ADA intake uniquely hard:

• The caller rarely frames it as an ADA case. They say “my boss is making things difficult” or “they fired me after my surgery.” Your intake team has to translate emotional narrative into legal elements.
• Limitations periods vary by track and state. Title I EEOC charges must be filed within 180 or 300 days depending on whether the state has its own anti-discrimination agency. An untrained intake coordinator can misclassify and blow the statute without realizing it.
• The employer’s response history matters as much as the adverse action. A case with no accommodation request on record is a fundamentally different case from one where the employer denied a written, documented request. Your intake needs to surface this on call one.

Title I vs Title II vs Title III: Getting the Track Right First

Before any other question, whoever picks up needs to identify which ADA track applies. This is not a step you skip to get to the facts faster.

Title I covers employment discrimination. The employer must have 15 or more employees. This is the most common track for a civil rights intake practice and the one most intake scripts are built around.

Title II covers state and local government entities. Public schools, DMV offices, courthouses, public transit. Government entities of any size are covered with no employee minimum.

Title III covers places of public accommodation. Restaurants, retail stores, hotels, medical offices, privately operated transportation. This is where website accessibility claims and physical access barrier cases appear.

One opening diagnostic question separates these three tracks:

“Were you treated this way by an employer, a government agency, or a business you were trying to use as a customer?”

That single question routes the call. Employment goes to the Title I protocol. Government entity goes to Title II analysis. Business access goes to Title III. Each track has different elements, different defendants, different statute of limitations analysis, and a different damages structure. Do not attempt to run a single script across all three.

The 5 Questions That Qualify (or Disqualify) an ADA Case in Under 3 Minutes

The following applies to Title I employment cases, which represent the majority of ADA intake calls. Adapt them based on the track identified above.

1. What is the disability, and has it been diagnosed?

The ADA defines disability as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. “Bad back” may or may not qualify. “Lumbar herniation at L4-L5 with documented nerve impingement” qualifies. You are not asking the caller to prove their case on the phone. You are checking whether a documented condition exists that counsel can work with.

Red flag: the caller describes vague symptoms with no medical history, no treating physician, and no diagnosis. This does not automatically disqualify a case, but it signals elevated proof risk. Flag it explicitly in the intake notes.

2. Did the employer know about the disability before the adverse action?

This is the question that kills more ADA cases than any other. If the employer genuinely did not know about a condition, there is no claim. Knowledge can be direct, meaning the employee disclosed it in writing or verbally to HR, or constructive, meaning the condition was obvious or the employer should have known from observable symptoms or medical leave records. Ask directly: did the caller tell HR, a supervisor, or anyone at the company about their condition before they were fired, demoted, or denied the accommodation?

3. Did they request an accommodation, and was it denied?

The interactive process is central to most ADA employment claims. An employer who never received an accommodation request and had no notice of a disability is in a very different legal position than one who received a written request and responded with “we cannot make that adjustment.” Ask directly: did the caller put anything in writing? Did they receive a written response? Is there any kind of documentation trail, even informal email exchanges or text messages?

4. How many employees does the employer have?

Fifteen is the federal minimum for Title I coverage. Most callers will not know the exact headcount. Ask them to estimate: is it a small local business with under 20 people, a mid-size company with 20 to 200, or a large company or regional employer? If they genuinely believe the headcount is under 15, flag the case for small employer analysis and check whether the relevant state law analog covers smaller employers, which many state statutes do.

5. When did the adverse action occur?

For Title I cases, the EEOC charge must be filed within 180 days in non-deferral states and 300 days in deferral states, meaning states that have their own civil rights enforcement agency with a work-sharing agreement with the EEOC. This is not analysis you leave for the attorney. Calculate it on the call. If the adverse action occurred 285 days ago and you are in a 300-day deferral state, the EEOC filing deadline is two weeks away. That urgency changes everything about how fast the firm must act after intake.

What “Reasonable Accommodation” Actually Means on an Intake Call

Callers use the phrase “reasonable accommodation” without understanding the legal threshold. Your intake team needs to understand it well enough to ask useful follow-up questions without inadvertently counseling the caller or misrepresenting what the law requires.

A reasonable accommodation is a modification to the work environment, job duties, schedule, or equipment that allows an employee with a disability to perform the essential functions of their job. The employer is not required to eliminate essential functions, create an entirely new position, or bump a more senior employee to create a vacancy.

On a call, this translates to three follow-up probes:

• What accommodation did the caller request, specifically? Remote work? Modified schedule? Different equipment? Reassignment to a vacant role?
• What reason did the employer give for denying it? Undue hardship? Business necessity? No response at all?
• Was the caller actually able to perform the essential functions of the job, with or without a reasonable accommodation?

A caller who requested a standing desk for a documented spinal condition and was denied without any interactive process discussion has a materially cleaner case than one who requested reassignment to a higher-paying position they were not qualified for. Surface these distinctions on call one. The attorney reviewing the intake summary should be able to assess viability before a consultation is ever scheduled.

Red Flags: When to Refer Out or Decline

Not every ADA inquiry converts to a case. These are the patterns that signal a referral or a polite pass:

No documented disability. A caller who believes they have a condition but has never seen a physician, has no diagnosis, and has no medical records faces a burden-of-proof problem at the starting line. Not unwinnable in every situation, but the risk profile is different. Flag it and let counsel decide. Do not decline it unilaterally at the intake level.

No employer knowledge. If the caller never disclosed the disability and there is no reasonable basis for the employer to have known, the threshold element fails. Ask twice before accepting this fact as dispositive, because callers sometimes forget disclosures they made during FMLA paperwork, return-to-work meetings, or HR accommodation forms.

Fewer than 15 employees with no state analog coverage. In states without a broader statute that covers smaller employers, small employer cases belong with a different firm or a different claim. Know your jurisdiction’s threshold before this call ends.

The adverse action is fully documented as performance-related with no disability nexus. If the caller was terminated for attendance violations documented over eighteen months that predate any disclosed disability, and those violations are in writing, the case has significant employer defenses baked in. Not automatically unwinnable, but your intake summary should flag this prominently for the reviewing attorney.

The EEOC deadline has passed with no equitable tolling argument. If the charge filing window has closed and there is no viable tolling theory, there is no case. This is not a maybe. Know the dates before the call ends.

Intake Script: Word-for-Word for ADA Employment Claims

This script covers the core qualification sequence for a Title I ADA employment case. Whoever picks up can use this to gather the intake data the reviewing attorney actually needs.

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“Thank you for calling [firm name]. I want to make sure we get the right information so the attorney can review your situation. Can I ask you a few questions?”

[After caller describes their situation:]

“Just so I understand, this was with an employer, correct? Not a business you were trying to use as a customer or a government office?”

[Confirm Title I track]

“Do you have a medical condition, disability, or health issue that has been diagnosed by a doctor or other healthcare provider?”

[If yes:] “And did your employer know about that condition before the main issue occurred?”

[If yes:] “Did you ever formally request any type of adjustment or accommodation from your employer because of that condition?”

[If yes:] “Did they respond, and did they provide the accommodation or turn it down?”

“Roughly how many employees does the company have? Just a ballpark is fine.”

“And the main thing that happened, whether that was termination, demotion, or something else, when did that occur?”

[Calculate the EEOC deadline internally. Flag if under 60 days remaining.]

“Thank you. Based on what you have shared, this is something our attorneys review. I want to make sure this gets in front of someone today. Before I let you go, what is the best way for us to reach you, and is there any time that absolutely does not work for a callback?”

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That script runs two to three minutes and produces the core intake data needed for a viability review. Keep it exactly that focused. Whoever picks up the phone is not counseling. They are collecting.

How to Document ADA Intake Findings for the Reviewing Attorney

An ADA intake summary that actually serves the attorney reviewing the case looks different from a standard PI intake form. The fields that matter most:

• ADA track: Title I / Title II / Title III
• Disability: Condition, diagnosis status (confirmed / unconfirmed), treating provider on record
• Employer knowledge: Yes / No / Constructive (with basis noted)
• Accommodation request: Yes / No, and if yes: request type, employer response, interactive process status
• Employer size: Estimated headcount, covered / possibly not covered
• Adverse action date: Exact date, EEOC deadline calculated, days remaining
• Key flags: Deadline urgency, documentation concerns, pre-existing performance record, small employer issue

When every ADA intake summary follows this structure, the attorney can triage the case file in sixty seconds. The cases worth pursuing get faster attention. The ones that do not qualify get a faster, cleaner pass. And the ones with imminent deadlines get the emergency flag they need before a week goes by with the file sitting in a queue.

Where Most ADA Intake Fails

The failure mode in ADA intake is almost never intentional. It is undertrained intake staff who treat ADA calls like PI calls, ask about physical injuries instead of accommodation requests, skip the employer size question entirely, and miss the statute of limitations window because nobody calculated the days on the phone.

The second failure mode is the absence of a real-time review mechanism. ADA cases that reach an attorney’s desk weeks after the initial call, with no flag about a 300-day deadline, are cases that get declined not because the facts were bad but because the clock ran out before anyone checked it.

Real-time intake coaching addresses both failure modes. When whoever picks up the phone receives live guidance on what to ask next and gets an automatic flag when a deadline element is surfaced, the intake that comes out of that call is qualitatively different from one handled entirely from memory and habit.

That is the same principle that applies across every practice area eNZeTi works with: better questions produce better intake data, and better intake data produces more qualified cases signed and fewer cases declined that should have been accepted.

See how eNZeTi works in a real law firm. Book a Free Call Analysis at enzeti.com and we will review your actual intake calls, show you exactly what is being missed, and give you a clear picture of the revenue impact. No pitch. No contract required to see the analysis.