Why This, and Why Now

Most organizations working on judicial and legal reform take in large donations that primarily fund salaries — people writing essays for websites and law journals, filing amicus briefs, and engaging in motion practice inside the very system they claim to be reforming. Despite decades of this approach and substantial money spent, judges have not been meaningfully held accountable, and the culture of unchecked judicial power has not changed. This is not a failure of effort — it is a structural reality. The people inside the system, including judges, will not vote to hold themselves personally accountable, penalize their own conduct, or give up unchecked discretion, no matter how many lawyers, essays, or lawsuits ask them to. That change has never come from inside the system, and it will not start now.

This movement is built on a different premise: change comes from outside the system, from ordinary people organizing together and refusing to accept the status quo — not from asking the system to reform itself. I have spent 11 years litigating this fight, the last several years working the equivalent of two full-time jobs without pay, including more than 18,000 hours in direct litigation and more than 3,000 additional hours studying legal principles and practice beyond my own cases. I cannot sustain this alone, and I cannot continue doing this work indefinitely for free.