For Litigators

Finance your Litigation in a New Way

About the Justice Note: A ‘Justice Note’ is a unique mechanism that provides money to social impact litigators and organizations (nonprofits and law firms) to hire staff, investigate new cases, or otherwise expand cutting-edge impact litigation caseloads. Functioning like a non-recourse line of credit, a Justice Note provides multi-year funds to support a portfolio of cases and is repaid only if litigation results in successful case recovery fees.

Pay for Your Current Cases with Future Fee Awards

HOW IT WORKS

Functioning like a line of credit, JCAF recipients are approved for a maximum disbursement amount, determined based on a portfolio of your existing cases and expected fee recoveries.

Recipients then draw down funds, and repay them, with interest, when they receive case recoveries. Absent recoveries, no money is owed.

Recipients may apply to renew, extend, or increase their loan amount anytime based on litigation outcomes and repayment performance.

A Justice Note is structured as a recoverable grant for nonprofits or as a non-recourse promissory note for law firms.

Focus on Impact - not Fundraising

JCAF was created to serve and support social impact litigation. Nonprofits and public interest litigators that borrow from JCAF can use a Justice Note as general operating funds to hire staff, investigate new cases, and cover other litigation-related expenses. By using a Justice Note for these expenses - instead of scarce grant dollars - nonprofits can sustain their hard-to-fund litigation, and firms can bring the kinds of cases that would otherwise be too risky to take on. In other words, recipients can:

• Preserve limited grant dollars for other uses

• Create predictable cash flows

• Sustain ongoing litigation practices

• Invest in new impact-focused litigation

• Be empowered in their co-counsel relationships