the JUSTICE DEFENDERS WAY
More than five billion people worldwide lack access to justice. Our work to close the global justice gap begins inside prisons where the consequences of injustice are felt most severely.
Those who need justice most are the least likely to access it. And those with lived experience of the system are the least likely to be heard.
Our approach
We work inside prisons to bring justice to those who need it most. We believe justice must begin where injustice is most deeply felt.
Together with our partners, we provide legal education, training, and practice within prison communities. People in prison and prison officers study law through accredited universities, graduate as paralegals and lawyers, and offer free legal services to their peers.
But our work doesn’t end at graduation or being released from prison. We continue to mentor our graduates and share learning with justice systems around the world. By transforming prisons into places of learning and service, we are building a movement that reimagines justice from the inside out.
Together with our partners,
we provide:
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EDUCATION
We train paralegals, strengthen legal understanding in prison communities, and offer law degrees with with University of London. We make the law available to people who never had it.
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PRACTICE
We advise clients, trace files, prepare cases, draft court correspondence, and pursue public interest litigation. We make fair hearings possible for people who previously stood alone.
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CONVENING
We bring unlikely allies together through shared reflection, community formation, and acts of service. We build relationships that reimagine justice from the inside out.
Our 2025-2027 strategy will grow our movement of defending the defenceless.
Over the next three years, we will outwork our mission to shift power within prisons and reshape justice from the inside out.
We will expand legal education and practice, create new pathways from incarceration to advocacy, and advance relational systems change that restores trust across justice institutions.
Through this work, the world’s first law firm of lived experience will take shape. Transforming how the world understands both the power of the law and who gets to practise it.
100,000
Clients served with affordable legal advice
10 new prisons
Including planting a prison community in the United States
10
Public Interest Litigation petitions filed
Our Values
Bravery
We courageously act for a new and better world.
We seek to do what hasn’t been done before, or that which we haven’t done before. We act bravely, take risks, and move forward to a preferred future, one where justice is accessible, reliable, and can be practised best by those who need it most.
Humility
We’re servants, sinners, and saints.
We aspire to be servant lawyers. We recognise that the law can help us gain power and wealth, but we choose to give away some of those things so we may step towards those on the margins of society. We have very little to offer but everything to give.
Solidarity
We’re building bridges in adversarial justice systems.
We value radical kinship, within our community and in partnership with other agencies. We are seeking allies out of adversaries who will drive us forward with the hope of a better future, without being limited by our past.
Excellence
We are committed to quality.
We deliver the highest quality defence to those with the least. We serve wholeheartedly while recognising our own flaws. We set high standards and approach every case with diligence and determination, knowing those we serve deserve nothing less.
Integrity
We are accountable stewards of the trust placed in us.
We stay true to justice in the face of adversity. Our words and actions align, and we hold ourselves accountable to clients, colleagues, and partners. In environments vulnerable to corruption, we act with radical honesty, doing what is right even when unseen.
