Widespread poverty and other barriers result in approximately 95% of incarcerated litigants representing themselves pro se in courts of law. Johnson v. Avery protects these litigants’ access to the legal help of jailhouse lawyers if no other legal services are made available to them. However, because imprisoned people are denied access to the Internet and direct dial telephone services, their abilities to understand and exercise their legal rights – or to advocate for the legal rights of others – are almost completely reliant on prison law libraries. Access to law libraries in carceral facilities is often highly restricted. For individuals in high-security units, prison law libraries may be almost entirely inaccessible. The resources available in these libraries are woefully inadequate, and commonly lack information about key areas of prisoners’ civil legal rights, such as voting rights case law or administrative procedures and family law. For many incarcerated laypeople without training in the use of legal databases, these facilities are prohibitively difficult to use. The result is that those litigants and non-attorney advocates who most need access to resources to exercise and defend their civil legal rights, or the rights others, without assistance of counsel are most lacking in actionable legal information. The foreseeable result of this these deficiencies is institutionalized injustice for one of this country’s most vulnerable and marginalized populations. Incarcerated individuals are commonly deprived of meaningful process and officials of the criminal legal system routinely evade accountability for rights-violating conditions and conduct.

Incarcerated pro se litigants, and the jailhouse lawyers and prison paralegals who serve them, urgently need legal resource materials that empower them to understand and exercise their civil rights under law. The PLAN-LEAAD Foundation is a coalition of attorneys; paralegals and other legal workers; law students; and a national community of over 1,000 jailhouse lawyers and prison paralegals. The PLAN-LEAAD Foundation’s Jailhouse Law Library (“JLL”) provides cost-free topical legal memos for a designated Circuit (both federal analysis and state-level analysis). These readily comprehensible memos often constitute the only actionable legal resources available to incarcerated pro se litigants and jailhouse lawyers who are defending prisoners’ civil rights in courts of law. JLL memo topics are responsive to the needs and priorities that are most frequently expressed by the incarcerated individuals who contact the Foundation for legal services and support. In addition to providing vital legal analysis to incarcerated individuals, PLAN-LEAAD Foundation legal teams also forge mentorship relationships for the next generation of public interest attorneys through the involvement of full-time law student interns. JLL teams afford jailhouse lawyers a professional community, while at the same time broadening legal practice in the prisoners’ rights bar to include incarcerated advocates’ integrally important insights and expertise.

Volunteer lawyers on this project will develop a topical legal memo for a designated Circuit as members of a well-supported legal team. This memo will equip both incarcerated pro se litigants who are defending their own civil rights - and also the jailhouse lawyers and prison paralegals who are often incarcerated individuals’ only source of legal support (a protected advocacy role under Johnson v. Avery) - with vital legal analysis regarding their voting rights and First Amendment rights. Project work will include legal research and writing; mentorship of a full-time law student intern; and collaboration with a participating jailhouse lawyer who will provide critical insights and subject matter expertise.

Full-time law student interns provide important project support, and volunteer attorneys are asked to collaborate with and informally mentor law student team members. However, a PLAN-LEAAD Foundation managing attorney serves as the formal supervisor for participating law students, and completes all necessary evaluations and other documentation associated with their roles. A legal assistant provides limited scope project support in the form of scheduling team meetings and managing other designated logistics.