Premised under a strategy of support, the Just Cause Collective provides an important service to activists who are involved with the legal system.
Web homepage: http://www.lawcollective.org/
Email: justcause@lawcollective.org
Snail mail: Just Cause Law Collective 1424 MAGNOLIA ST OAKLAND, CA 94607
Located within California, but the group mobilizes legal teams to every large demonstration and event.
The Just Cause Law Collective is a mobile legal team that provides support to activists at every stage of nonviolent political resistance.
· we advise organizers who are planning demonstrations · we assist attorneys with solidarity and litigation strategies for cases involving protesters
· we teach activists to use nonviolence techniques and solidarity tactics
· we train and coordinate legal observers who record police actions in the field Demonstration and Incarceration
· we staff a legal support hot-line 24 hours a day
· we monitor arrests and track activists in custody, so that no one is lost in the system
· we visit jailed activists and help them use solidarity tactics to gain equal treatment
· we facilitate collective plea bargaining, using the power of numbers to gain advantageous plea bargains Litigation
· we represent activists in court and assist local counsel with their political cases
· we handle investigation
· we do legal research and writing
· we create courtroom displays and exhibits
· we develop jury selection tools
· we train and coordinate courtroom observers
· we assist local attorneys in setting up class action civil rights suits Among our long-term goals is the creation of a comprehensive manual for lawyers and legal workers who wish to provide solidarity-based legal support at mass actions, including training materials, case briefs, boilerplate motions, documented office procedures, and a database shell. (" ABOUT US: Mission Stattement " from just cause law collective Website)
The Just Cause Collective
does not appear to have any political leanings, but seeing how they work within
the system, they advocate both
reform and education.
The State and the legal system
They work within the legal system in order to support various activist causes. However, they do advocate the use of solidarity tactics (collective disobedience and insubordination when dealing with agents of the state) within the in order to overwhelm that State’s own use of the legal system against them. (See the section ‘solidarity tactics’ on the Just cause website)
The Just Cause Collective
have been present at every large American
activist event (Washington D.C, IMF WTO, etc.), providing legal advice to arrested
protestors.