Many longstanding policy problems and social injustices -- wealth inequality, racial injustice, climate change, to name a few -- have grown worse in recent years. The election of Donald Trump to the U.S. Presidency last week has amplified the concerns of millions who believe that the trajectory of policy will only exacerbate and deepen those problems and injustices.
The Union of Concerned Lawyers (UCL) is a response to those problems and events by individuals who have expertise in the legal system, and who believe that:
laws and policies play a significant, if underappreciated, role in creating those problems,
that role and those effects must be confronted and interrupted before sustainable progress toward justice can be realized, and
doing so requires the concerted action of legal educators, law students, lawyers of all types, community activists, (etc.).
UCL is built upon the shared recognition that many of our most egregious social, economic, environmental, and political challenges have roots in the legal system and that, by tracing and truncating those roots, those challenges can be met. UCL is comprised of lawyers, in short, who believe that the legal system is a source of injustice but remain committed to its potential for justice.