CrowdJustice is a new online platform in the UK that allows people to come together to fund an action that affects them as a community. The website selects public interest cases, publicises them on its website, and invites the public to fund them. It allows the “enormous power of the community to be harnessed to achieve legal change”.
A person wishing to bring a case can create a ‘Case Page’ on the CrowdJustice website explaining what the case is about and why they need funding for it. The ‘Case Owner’ will set a deadline and a monetary target for the amount they need to raise to fund the case. Once the target is met the pledges are collected and the pledgers’ cards are charged. CrowdJustice will then hold this money on trust for the ‘Case Owner’ in their lawyer’s account. This provides a layer of comfort for the pledger who has raised the money, as they know it will be accounted for and used as promised. The ‘Case Owner’ will then keep in touch and update pledgers about latest developments in the case. Where all the money raised is not used during proceedings, the remainder goes to the Access to Justice Foundation.
Public interest cases are usually brought by a single individual or small group, when in fact the issue can affect a much wider group of people. It is hoped that CrowdJustice will allow better access to the courts for those cases that have no financial gain, but rather promote a social good or the protection of a local asset.
The initiative has been welcomed by the public interest litigation sector, as its introduction comes at a time when changes in legal aid and judicial review have made access to the courts even more difficult. Crowdfunding projects, like CrowdJustice, are not going to replace legal aid, nor are they going to become the main source of public interest litigation funding, but they may become an important resource in public interest law. According to founder Julia Salasky, it has “potential in making the law and the legal system accessible to individuals and communities for whom it was previously a distant and remote privilege – rather than a right.”
Click here to access the CrowdJustice website.