Recently the towns of Manteca, Ripon and Tracy among others have seen a sharp rise in the number of lawsuits from out of town lawyers targeting local businesses for allegedly violating portions of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Many of these are small, family owned businesses who are ill equipped to afford the vast legal fees to fight a professional trial lawyer and have been forced to shut down. It is a problem that has been growing for years, especially here in the Valley and most acutely in minority and immigrant communities where lawyers target those who learned English as a second language or are new to this country and therefore have a limited familiarity with the American legal system.