The law doesn't just fail people in poverty; it's often built to punish them. We holistically defend the people it targets, one person at a time, and then organize with our clients to implement lasting, systemic change.
Most systems aren't built to help people succeed; they're built to catch people failing because they assume people are "cheating the system". A benefits application is designed to screen out fraud, not to get someone food or housing. A missed deadline or improperly formed motion can close a case for good, regardless of what actually happened. We're building the alternative: give people real pathways to succeed, connect them to the community support they need, and simplify the process so success is the easy path — then rewrite the law to make that the default. Because when they do, they function to meet the true demands of justice.
Referred by a partner straight to a lawyer. Full representation. Civil or criminal — if poverty is the cause, we take it on.
Every case reveals where the system breaks. With our clients, we design alternatives that model functional justice: practice guidance, policy reforms, and proposed legislation.
From pilot to standard practice, we test what works with real cases, then advocate to write it into policy and law — so the fix isn't just ours, it's everyone's.
In 2016, Michigan district courts were jailing people for being too poor to pay their court fines — despite long-established constitutional law saying they couldn't. We filed a comment letter supporting reform, backed by a petition signed by dozens of our clients and soup kitchen patrons. And three of our clients — Dennis, Lesia, and Mecca — came with us to Lansing to testify in their own words.
“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring.— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967
Normally a nonprofit is expected to put a client's heartbreaking story here. But our work is to force dignity into systems that create trauma. Selling it as an individual's story turns a structural failure into a sympathetic anecdote, and lets the system that caused it off the hook.