Why Accountability and Public Justice Matters...

Paul Bland, Executive Director of Public Justice, has dedicated his professional life as a lawyer and consumer advocate to protecting people from corporate wrongdoers and bad Supreme Court decisions. Watch Paul's recent interview with Media Matters for America as he discusses his career defending cheated customers and the vital role of class actions in bringing about a just society.

Why having access to accountability & our judicial system matters to all... 

When companies or institutions cheat, harm, or discriminate against large numbers of people, class actions are often the only way to hold them accountable and win justice. That's why corporate wrongdoers are trying to limit or outright ban class actions nationwide. 

Consumers throughout America are supposed to be treated fairly and honestly. Unfortunately, many financial services companies seek to maximize profits by cheating customers.

Relationships between employer and employee should be built on honesty, clarity and fairness.  But some companies and government institutions cheat, harm and discriminate against their workers.  And some employment policies and contracts leave employees vulnerable to mistreatment, and try to eliminate their rights.

Across the country, corporate wrongdoers are amending their contracts to ban individual and class action litigation. 

Court secrecy in the form of sealing trial records is being used more and more by corporations to limit their liability and protect their public image. Even if it poses life-and-death dangers to consumers. Companies often site "trade secrets" as rationale for sealing court records. In many instances, this rationale is used only to shield themselves from negative publicity.

What Public Justice Is Doing

Wrongdoers are working as hard as they can to lock the courthouse doors. Public Justice attorneys have been working as hard trying to ensure these doors remain open to us all; litigating public interests cases, battling against forced arbitration, exposing and preventing excessive secrecy and raising awareness to the critical importance of striking down class action bans designed to protect corporate profits and avoid accountability.

Help them help us. Tweet, share a link, or blog in support of Public Justice's efforts to right and deter corporate wrongs* 

* Deterrence Legal Definition
  A principle or objective of sentencing a person guilty of a crime which ensures that the punishment is sufficient to deter the guilty person, and others, from committing the same crime.

"The law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me."

 Martin Luther King Jr., 1956