Reclaiming Our Politics with a New Kind of Civic Discourse

January 13, 2021

Turn on the news and you will surely hear plenty about protests, violence and the political polarization of the country. However, a new analysis conducted by two non-partisan organizations, Voice of the People and Common Ground Solutions, indicates that we Americans may not be as divided as we might think. Limited but…

Promoting Social and Environmental Justice in a Post-Pandemic World

June 30, 2020

The disproportionate impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on people of color and low-income people worldwide, in terms of both the loss of life and livelihood, has now made it more difficult to live in denial about the socio-economic inequities that have been ignored and tolerated for far too…

Justice Revival: Inspiring Christian Communities to Respond to the Call of Justice

March 27, 2020

Justice Revival is a Christian non-profit organization working to inspire, educate, and mobilize Christian faith communities who wish to put their religious values into practice to create a more just society. Justice Revival envisions a world where each person’s dignity and rights are respected, whatever one’s religion, nationality, race, ethnicity,…

Thought Partnerships: Advancing Non-Violent, Just and Inclusive Societies

March 17, 2020

Thought Partnerships is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing non-violent, just, and inclusive societies. It seeks to create collective impact by building effective Communities of Practice. Thought Partnerships creates opportunities for deep peer-to peer learning and sharing within and across diverse geographies to harness the collective wisdom of experts, activists,…

Finding Solutions to the Affordable Housing Shortage

February 12, 2020

Both lower income as well as higher income renters are having more and more difficulty finding affordable rental housing. According to a new study from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS), households with annual incomes of $75,000 or more are now the driving force in the rental market,…

Justice Now

December 12, 2019

Justice Now is a California based non-profit social justice organization providing legal advocacy and other types of supportive services to incarcerated women. Justice Now envisions a world without prisons and seeks to dismantle the prison industrial complex, believing that the current system damages those incarcerated as well as their communities.…

The Justice Arts Coalition

December 5, 2019

The Justice Arts Coalition (JAC) is a non-profit organization that unites institutions and individuals that believe in the power of the arts to ignite change by supporting artists in and around the justice system. Since 2008, JAC, formerly called the Prison Arts Coalition, has been uniting teaching artists, arts advocates,…

The Basics of Case Law Research

October 25, 2019

Case law, also known as common law, are rules of law derived from judicial decisions in particular court cases. Higher court decisions are binding on lower courts based on the concept of precedent, or stare decisis, which means to follow or adhere to what was previously decided. Case law is…

What are Therapeutic Justice Courts?

August 7, 2019

Therapeutic Justice Courts (TJCs), also called Problem Solving Courts, Specialty Courts, Recovery Courts, Treatment Courts or Collaborative Justice Courts, focus on education, healing, and restoration for criminal offenders, their victims, and the community.

Consciously Co-Creating Better Contracts

May 6, 2019

Black's Law Dictionary defines a contract as "A deliberate engagement between competent parties, upon a legal consideration, to do or abstain from doing, some act." In order for a contract to be legally binding, there must be (1) an offer; (2) acceptance of the offer; (3) consideration (bargained-for exchange); (4)…

Involuntary Commitment: Can You Force Someone to Go to Rehab?

March 1, 2019

As the nationwide opioid epidemic continues, desperate parents and addiction advocates are pushing lawmakers to expand the use of involuntary commitment laws to force addicts into inpatient addiction treatment. Its a controversial subject with constitutional as well as practical implications. Most state involuntary commitment statutes are used to confine people…

Legal Options When a Loved One Loses Mental Capacity

February 23, 2019

Life is unpredictable and there are any number of explanations for how and why an adult may lose mental capacity. An elderly parent could develop dementia or Alzheimer's. A spouse could get into an accident and suffer a traumatic brain injury. Even long-term substance abuse could result in the deterioration…

Legal Protections for Domestic Violence Victims in New Jersey

January 23, 2019

According to statistics from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, every minute in the United States an average of 20 people experience physical violence by an intimate partner, amounting to more than 10 million people every year. Approximately 1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men experience severe intimate…

Service Animals & Federal Law

January 10, 2019

The subject of service animals has been in the news quite a bit recently, mostly because of the wave of controversy surrounding "fraudulent" service animals creating problems on airplanes. However, legitimate service animals provide crucial assistance to many disabled individuals, allowing them the freedom to live their lives safely and…

What is Conscious Contracting?

December 5, 2018

This past weekend I attended a Conscious Contracting Workshop at The Center for Open Hiring at Greyston in Yonkers, New York taught by lawyer and legal consultant J. Kim Wright. Also known as Values-Based, Vision-Based, Mindful, Sustainable or Integrative Contracts, Conscious Contracts® is the brain child of legal innovators J.…