I am normally not big on anniversaries. That has gotten me in trouble in the past with my wife. But in late 2023 I found myself unusually invested in my 20th anniversary at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law to the point that I threw myself a happy hour and invited my colleagues.
The signed basketball from my colleagues was the ideal gift.
By December 14, the date of the happy hour, I knew why the anniversary was such a big deal – it signified that it was time to move on. Right before Thanksgiving I had started up with my executive coach. It did not take much time for me to come up with a name and the basic concept. Four days after this happy hour, I had “coffee” with Brenda Shum, my former colleague, who you see in the red coat in the background, and I showed her the first version of my two-page document that had the name, the basic concept, and my first logo.
The name came remarkably easy. The name took me about thirty minutes to come up with and it has stayed the same since Day 1. “Justice” has deep personal meaning and it is a goal I have for society. It also pays homage to my history at the Department of Justice. At heart, I see myself as a “legal strategist.”
The basic concept has largely stayed the same, but I am constantly tweaking it. I knew I wanted to create a mission-driven for-profit firm which people like John Relman and Deepak Gupta have done incredibly successfully. But I wanted to do something different and combine my experience as a litigator with my experiences in helping teams develop and implement multifaceted strategies to legal problems, creating a high-functioning legal department, and working with individuals in maximizing their talent. My specific mission is to help advance the progressive legal movement. As far as I know, there is no template for what I am doing, which is both exciting and scary because it means there is a unique opportunity but also means that potential clients — who I think will be mostly nonprofits, but also funders, law firms, and corporations – must see the value in a service that has never really existed.
At a minimum, I see the need for it. The progressive legal movement faces a challenging environment with the most conservative Supreme Court in decades, a burgeoning and well-funded right-wing legal movement that feels the wind at their backs, and at this moment, the prospect of a second Trump Administration that if it gets the opportunity, has a plan for simultaneously transforming, dismantling, and weaponizing the executive branch. It is going to take our best efforts to not only combat these challenges but to make progress.
In an executive management retreat last year, each of us was asked to identify “our superpower.” I think mine is to make things work better when it comes to progressive legal strategies – it could be how to respond to the recent wave of attacks on the use of race or how to help a team frame a case or what arguments to emphasize in a brief or how to coach a manager through a challenging team dynamic, all of which are recent examples. Over the years, I have refined my approach so that most of the time my engagement on an issue is a fraction of the time spent by my talented colleagues. I help them in finding and refining solutions, but they are doing the bulk of the work. It has made both happier. I can achieve greater impact in less time, and they retain ownership over their work. That is why I think I can change from being the supervisor of many people to the supervisor of none but the helper of many. And, as always, I will dig deep into something myself when I need to.
For now, I am characterizing the work of Justice Legal Strategies in three buckets. The first bucket is litigation and legal strategy. Services that fall under this bucket: (a) the development and assessment of litigation theories and other legal analyses; (b) strategic support and management of litigation; (c) assistance in the development of innovative responses that utilize a combination of strategies including litigation and legal advice, public policy and advocacy, public education and communications, and programmatic efforts; and (d) legal scenario planning to respond to emerging opportunities or threats such as administration change.
The second bucket is legal management, coaching, and training. Services here include: (a) interim chief counsel/legal director services for organizations in transition; (b) legal department structuring or restructuring to achieve greater efficiency and impact; (c) coaching services to managers of legal departments and other nonprofit managers to help solve challenging issues; and (d) skill development in lawyering and management.
The third bucket is specific to my nearly thirty-year background working on civil rights issues. Services I could provide here are quite broad. Examples include: (a) development and implementation of legal strategies to promote voting rights and combat voter suppression; (b) advice on how to develop and maintain diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in light of emerging legal challenges; (c) expert assistance to law firms on civil rights issues or improving their pro bono programs.