Minh N.Vu

Partner

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Minh views her job as solving client problems in the most efficient and advantageous manner possible, whether the problem takes the form of a lawsuit, a Justice Department investigation, or a customer complaint.


More About Minh

Minh’s national practice focuses exclusively on the legal obligations of places of public accommodation, recipients of federal assistance, government contractors, and housing providers to individuals with disabilities under Title III of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Fair Housing Act (FHA), and various state non-discrimination statutes. Minh is a recognized thought leader on ADA Title III issues who is known for her practical and business-friendly approach to litigation and compliance under this law.

Minh leads the firm’s ADA Title III team—a group of more than 10 attorneys nationwide who focus their work on this law and handle a significant share of the more than 10,000 federal ADA Title III lawsuits filed each year. Minh knows all the players in the space and their strengths, weaknesses, and approaches to litigating and settling cases. This knowledge allows Minh to develop tailored response strategies that result in efficient and favorable outcomes for clients. With more than two decades of experience in handling ADA Title III matters at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and in private practice, there are few questions that she cannot answer immediately based on her extensive knowledge of the law. She also has the experience and judgment to provide clients with guidance on the application of the ADA to cutting-edge technology and products.

Minh's practice encompasses:

Litigation Defense. Minh has handled a vast array of individual plaintiff and class action disability discrimination matters involving public accommodations throughout the United States, with most cases arising in California, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania. Her clients come from all industries, including hospitality, retail, banking, entertainment, sports, media, health care, restaurants, and gaming. Minh has successfully defended public accommodations in a broad range of accessibility lawsuits under Title III of the ADA and similar state laws involving topics such as websites, mobile apps, architectural barriers, point of sale devices, ATMs, kiosks, service animals, power mobility devices, sign language interpreters, communications technologies for the deaf, closed captioning for videos, telecommunications relay services, and so much more.

Department of Justice and Other Investigations. Minh has significant experience in the representation of businesses, public entities, and nonprofits under investigation by the DOJ and state enforcement agencies for alleged violations of Titles II and III of the ADA and FHA. In many matters, she successfully obtained the closure of investigations with no action. In others, she has successfully negotiated favorable settlements and consent decrees on behalf of hotels, health care providers, restaurants, retailers, educational institutions, and financial services companies concerning virtually every conceivable subject matter, including architectural barriers, effective communication (e.g. sign language interpreters, documents in alternate formats, accessible websites and mobile apps), ATMs, and service animals.

Advice, Counseling, Policy Development, and Training. Minh’s practice includes advising clients on the requirements of the ADA and other disability laws and creating compliance policies and training programs. The country's top retailers, banks, hospitality companies, car rental companies, casinos, and equipment manufacturers have retained Minh to help them create national enterprise-wide ADA compliance policies, operational procedures, customized facilities checklists, and training materials for thousands of employees. She helps clients navigate through difficult issues such as website and mobile applications accessibility, the gray areas of 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Facilities, pool and spa lifts, point of sale devices, medical equipment, self-service equipment, hotel reservations processes, event ticketing policies, and ATMs. Manufacturers of customer-facing self-service equipment have also retained Minh to opine on whether the design of their machines are accessible to individuals with various types of disabilities.

Fair Housing Act Litigation, Investigations, and Compliance

While at the DOJ, Minh oversaw the enforcement of the FHA against housing owners and developers.  She has applied that experience to defend owners and developers of multifamily housing communities in DOJ investigations/lawsuits alleging violations of the FHA’s accessible design and construction requirements. In addition, Minh and her team have extensive experience defending housing owners and operators against complaints alleging discrimination in housing based on disability, including alleged failures to provide reasonable accommodations or make reasonable modifications to normal policies.  Minh also defends housing providers against claims of discrimination based on other protected characteristics such as race. 

Federal Rulemaking Proceedings. As ADA Title III counsel to the nation’s top lodging trade association for more than a decade, she has represented the interests of the lodging industry in every major rulemaking under Title III of the ADA since 2006, including those pertaining to the 2010 revisions to the ADA Title III regulations, furniture, equipment, and accessible websites. Minh also represented one of the country’s largest movie theatre companies in the 2014 DOJ rulemaking concerning the closed captioning of movies.

Background. After graduating from law school, Minh spent nearly a decade as a litigator at one of the world’s top law firms, where she handled a variety of cases at all levels of the federal judicial system and before state and federal agencies. In 2001, Minh joined the DOJ where she served as Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. In that position, Minh oversaw the enforcement of the ADA, the FHA, the Rehabilitation Act, as well as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She also represented the DOJ at the US Access Board, the federal agency charged with creating accessibility guidelines for public accommodations, commercial facilities, and federal agencies. She returned to private practice in 2003, where she has focused her practice on Title III of the ADA and related laws.

In 2012, Minh authored the ADA Guide for Lodging Owners and Operators, the first book of its kind published by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA). She also testified before Congress on behalf of the lodging industry on new ADA requirements for lifts at pools and spas. Minh is also the editor of and a primary contributor to Seyfarth’s ADA Title III News & Insights Blog. Minh has appeared on NPR and Fox Business as an ADA Title III leading subject matter professional, and she has been quoted in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, Bloomberg, The Economist, The American Banker, and The National Law Journal. In 2016, Anderson Cooper interviewed Minh for a 60 Minutes segment on ADA Title III litigation.

  • JD, University of Pennsylvania Law School

    With honors

  • BA, Columbia College
  • District of Columbia
  • Virginia
  • US Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit
  • US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
  • US Court of Appeals, DC Circuit
  • US Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit
  • US Court of Federal Claims
  • US District Court, District of Columbia
  • US District Court, District of Maryland
  • US District Court, Eastern District of Virginia
  • District of Columbia Court of Appeals