A 15-day deadline cuts the traditional runway in half.

Ask any employment lawyer what slows down a position statement, and the answer is rarely the law. It is the file. More specifically, it is the hunt for the file. This hunt can be particularly challenging in the case of disability accommodation claims.

When an employee alleges that the company failed to accommodate a disability, the employer’s best defense is usually a clear, documented record of a good-faith interactive process. The problem is that, at many companies, that record does not exist in one place, and sometimes no one inside the organization knows exactly where all of it is. 

That problem just got more urgent. Beginning in mid-2026, a growing number of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charge notices nationwide have set a 15-day deadline for employer position statements rather than the familiar 30, according to commission notices reviewed by Bloomberg Law and reports from employment practitioners. The agency’s published guidance still states that a respondent “generally has 30 days” to submit its position statement, and an EEOC spokesperson has said there has been no “official agency-wide policy change,” while acknowledging that “response deadlines may vary among EEOC offices.” At least one firm, however, reports having confirmed with the EEOC that the agency has adopted an internal 15-day policy, and investigators are reportedly limiting employers to a single extension of seven to 10 days, with some offices denying extensions altogether. Whether or not the change is ever formalized, employers should plan for the shorter deadline. Here is why that matters and what employers can do about it now.

The Shrinking Window

A 15-day deadline cuts the traditional runway in half. That may be workable for a straightforward termination charge. It is a very different exercise when the charge involves a disability accommodation, where the defense depends on reconstructing months of requests, conversations, medical documentation and offers.

Our own recent experience bears this out. In 2026, there have been multiple EEOC offices in Texas deny extension requests outright, or grant a first extension and then cut it short, giving employers 14 days instead of the 30 requested. That is a marked departure from past practice in some other jurisdictions, where employers could often obtain several successive 30-day extensions with little resistance. Practice still varies by office, but employers everywhere should plan on the assumption that more time will not be available.

That shift hits large organizations hardest. Where divisions and teams each keep their own records, extensions have often been what made it possible to assemble a complete file, whether the accommodation history or the documentation of performance issues and other legitimate reasons behind an employment decision. Without that cushion, the collection work has to happen before the charge arrives. And because a position statement may be shared with the charging party and later compared against discovery, a rushed response can create credibility problems long after the charge closes.

Where the Charge Lands Still Matters

A shorter federal deadline does not land the same way everywhere. In many states, a state or local fair employment practices agency shares the work with the EEOC, and employers may see parallel state proceedings, separate state-law claims and a 300-day filing window. Other states have no agency covering private employers at all, which puts the EEOC position statement squarely at the center of the employer’s administrative defense.

Georgia is a good illustration of the second group. The Georgia Fair Employment Practices Act, enforced by the Georgia Commission on Equal Opportunity, reaches only employment with the Georgia state government, so charges against private Georgia employers, including manufacturers, go to the EEOC’s Atlanta District Office or its Savannah Local Office. Employees there generally have 180 days, rather than 300, to file a charge, and for many Georgia employers the position statement is the principal administrative opportunity to tell the company’s side of the story before a right-to-sue notice issues. Georgia’s Equal Employment for Persons with Disabilities Code, which applies to employers with 15 or more employees, provides a separate state-law disability discrimination claim, although it is narrower than the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and expressly does not require employers to modify their physical facilities.

Whatever the state, know which agency will receive the charge and which deadlines and state-law claims apply, and treat the date in the charge notice as firm.

What an Accommodation Defense Actually Requires

Under the ADA, the question is often less about whether an employer said “yes” or “no” and more about how it got there. To tell that story credibly, counsel typically needs:

• The original request, in whatever form it was made (email, portal submission, conversation with a supervisor or a note to HR);
• Every follow-up communication between the employee, the manager, HR and any third-party administrator;
• Medical documentation requested and received, and the dates of each;
• Each accommodation considered, offered, implemented, modified or declined, and the reasons;
• Who made each decision, and when; and
• How similar requests from other employees were handled.

That last item is easy to overlook. Plaintiffs frequently seek comparator information on how long ther employees’ requests took, whether they faced the same documentation demands and whether policies were applied consistently. If an employer cannot quickly show a consistent process, the absence of records can look like the absence of a process.

The Real Problem: Paperwork “All Over the Place”

In our experience, the obstacle is rarely a bad-faith decision. It is fragmentation. Accommodation history is often spread across an HRIS or leave platform, an HR spreadsheet, email threads, Teams or Slack messages, a third-party administrator’s portal and a manager’s personal notes, and some key conversations are never written down at all.

That raises a basic question: What, and where, is “the file”? It isn’t just the HR folder. It’s the note in a supervisor’s desk drawer, the Slack or Teams thread, the company messaging app exchange, the text to a manager’s phone and the calendar invite for the interactive-process meeting. A good rule of thumb: If it’s in writing and someone sent it, received it or relied on it, assume it’s fair game in the EEOC investigation and in any lawsuit that follows, subject to privilege.

HR, operations and legal each hold a different piece of the record, and none has the full picture. Operations may know the employee was moved to a different workstation; HR may have the doctor’s note; legal may not learn about either until the charge arrives. We recently saw this play out in a matter where relevant information had to be gathered from multiple systems, business units and custodians, including communications that were never formally documented.

Fragmentation also complicates preservation. Once a charge is filed, EEOC regulations require employers to preserve personnel records relevant to the charge until final disposition (29 C.F.R. § 1602.14), and auto-deleting chat messages, departing employees’ mailboxes and informal notes are the materials most likely to be lost.

It’s Not Just an Accommodation Problem

Accommodation charges are where scattered records cause the most trouble, but the same issue comes up in termination, discipline and other cases. The documentation supporting an employment decision often isn’t in the personnel file. It’s in a supervisor’s text messages, Teams or Slack chats, or personal email. If someone sent, received or relied on it in making the decision, assume it’s part of the record. With a 15-day response window, employers need to know where those communications live before a charge arrives, not after. And those messages are subject to the same preservation obligations once a charge is filed, so they belong on the litigation hold from day one.

The Bottom Line: What Employers Should Be Doing Right Now

Don’t wait for the charge to build the file. Build it as you go. Here’s where to start:

Map Where the Records Live

Identify every system, platform and person that touches an accommodation request, including third-party administrators, messaging apps, work texts and paper notes, and make sure legal knows where to look when a charge arrives.

Centralize the File as It Happens

Designate a single system of record for each request and log communications, documentation and decisions there as they happen, applying the same standards across departments.

Train Managers on Documentation

Supervisors are often the first to hear a request, even an informal one. On a plant floor, in a warehouse or at a store, that may be a shift lead fielding a request for a modified workstation, schedule change or lifting restriction in the middle of a shift. Train them to recognize requests, escalate them promptly and confirm key conversations in writing.

Build a Charge-Response Playbook

Prepare a checklist of what counsel will need, who collects it and how litigation holds are issued, including suspension of auto-delete settings, so that the clock is spent on analysis rather than searching.

Run a Fire Drill

Pick a recently closed accommodation request and ask HR to assemble the complete file and timeline as if a charge had just arrived. If it takes more than a few days, fix the gaps before a real deadline is running.

Fifteen days isn’t much time. It’s enough if the file already exists. It isn’t if you have to go find it.

For More Information

If you have any questions about this Alert, please contact Joseph A. Ciucci, Nicolette J. Zulli, any of the attorneys in our Employment, Labor, Benefits and Immigration Practice Group or the attorney in the firm with whom you are regularly in contact.

Disclaimer: This Alert has been prepared and published for informational purposes only and is not offered, nor should be construed, as legal advice. For more information, please see the firm's full disclaimer.