Who we are

We are lawyers, advocates, and activists committed to creating a more just and restorative society. 

We meet impacted people where they are. We listen and respond to their needs.

We know that people’s needs are complex and steeped in structure and history.

We build solutions that address injustice and harm at societal, structural, community, familial, and individual levels.

We respect that people are experts in their own lives. 

We believe communities are safest when the justice system works for them.

We believe that families should stay together, whenever possible.

We believe that the circumstances of a person’s birth should not determine their future.

We insist that fair treatment under the law is a right, not a luxury.

We advocate against mass incarceration and mass surveillance which have most harmed communities of color and low income communities in the United States.

We fight for racial and gender equity, justice, and collective liberation.

We belong to a broad coalition and movement for restorative justice and intergenerational healing. 

We share the radical hope that this national crisis can be met with transformational change.

What we do

We answer the phone. from currently incarcerated people to their family members and people with arrest and conviction histories, our reentry legal hotline serves statewide. 

We help people access employment, find housing, reunify their families, and assert their rights to dignity and fair treatment under the law.

We follow the data and see things as connected. we are community lawyers who understand that employment, housing, and family aren’t separate from poverty, violence, and recidivism. 

We focus on people most impacted by mass incarceration and the war on drugs, working to facilitate healing and create more just outcomes in low income communities, communities of color, rural communities, and tribal communities – recognizing they have been twice marginalized. we provide wraparound services and strengths based support as clients wield their own expertise to advocate for what they need. 

We innovate the legal field. laws are tools to be used, and we use them to heal and restore peoples’ lives. we combine direct legal and human services with systems change work by embedding lawyers in communities and advancing policy wherever we can. our model pushes past what others think is possible, and it works. 

We work to build a better justice system by combining strong legal advocacy with legislation and litigation.

We work with people we may disagree with on certain issues. we aim to change systems from within and without. that means we step up to guide stakeholders in civil society, the government, and the criminal justice system on how to be better actors.

We recognize that the current criminal justice system is the faultline between generations of economic and racial injustice. rather than centering justice and rehabilitation, the current system profits from the ongoing suffering of vulnerable people. we want nothing less than to end that cycle.