Social Justice Legal Foundation aims to build legacy

As the new head of the Social Justice Legal Foundation, trial attorney Sara Haji wants to make sure that the organization is here to stay.

“My goal is that the energy and vision of this foundation are maintained regardless of who the executive director is or who is on the board,” Haji said in a virtual interview. “We’re two to three years old, and I think that’s an exciting time for an organization.”

The group was founded in January 2021 with the backing of Los Angeles based litigation firm Hueston Hennigan LLP and takes on cases that Haji, the organization’s former legal director, described as “ambitious in their systemic impact.”

The legal foundation secured its first settlement in October in a lawsuit filed with the ACLU of Southern California against the City of Lancaster. The case accused the city of violating constitutional rights when police cited the plaintiff for disturbing the peace when he was handing out “know your rights” materials at a homeless camp. Butts v. City of Lancaster et al., 21STCP00389 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Feb. 8, 2021).

“We reached a really favorable settlement. It’s been nice to see a resolution for our client and as part of that, the City of Lancaster has to institute new policies and review mechanisms to ensure that their police officers are not citing people for First Amendment protected activity,” said Haji, counsel at Hueston Hennigan until May.

She said the firm has four active cases — two in federal court in Louisiana, one in the Central District of California, and one in San Mateo County Superior Court — that are all related to incarceration.

“We began the organization thinking that we would start with a specific issue area and build some expertise and a bench of talent that was interested in and had experience in that issue area,” explained Haji. She said in the coming year the organization is looking to take on cases involving economic justice and environmental issues.

The foundation, which offers two-year fellowships to law students, also wants to expand the number of law schools that it works with, especially those that are known to have strong public interest programs, said Haji. It started with Columbia, Northwestern, UCLA, Yale and Stanford, and has since included Howard University.

“That was in part because one of our board members is linked to the Howard community and we wanted to make sure that they were represented here as well,” said Haji. “We understand that there is a sort of elitism that comes from a lot of top law schools and we want to make sure that our fellows are as broadly representative as possible.”

Haji said the organization accepts two or three law students each year and intends to have four to six fellows at any given time. The fellows appear in court sooner than they would almost anywhere else, she added.

“The classic model is that [people] go to law firms when they leave law school and these firms might have an opportunity to train them but they’re not going to be able to stand up in court, take depositions, or interact with opposing counsel for the first couple of years,” said Haji. “You either do that when you come out of law school or you get to go to a public interest organization where you’ll be able to do meaningful work but you won’t get trained because they don’t have the resources to train you.” The foundation wants to bridge the gap between these traditional avenues, Haji continued, and develop a training component to give young lawyers the skills they need to effectively litigate a case.

Haji said that the organization is hiring a managing attorney and a senior attorney as it looks to expand its investigative capacity and bring more cases in the coming year. Civil litigators from all backgrounds are encouraged to apply, she said — not only lawyers who have experience in public interest work but also those “who look at the world around them and think, ‘What I want to do is litigate cases for the public good.’” The foundation always needs pro bono assistance from private firms and practitioners, she added.

Haji said another focus for 2024 is to ramp up the cases filed this year, like the lawsuit challenging San Mateo County’s policy of prohibiting physical mail from being sent to its jails.

Filed with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Knight First Amendment Institute, the lawsuit claims the county violates the California Constitution by requiring mail to be sent to a private company that digitizes and destroys the original documents and retains the scanned copies without cause. ABO Comix et al. v. County of San Mateo et al., 23-CIV-01075 (San Mateo Super. Ct., filed Mar. 9, 2023)

Attorneys at the foundation have sued the privately owned Adelanto Detention Center, claiming a toxic chemical sprayed throughout the immigrant holding facility a few years ago is causing chronic illnesses among detainees. They said they hope to get a class certified in the lawsuit next year. Ronduen et al. v. The GEO Group Inc., 23-cv-00481 (C.D. Cal., filed Mar. 20, 2023).

Strengthening community relations is another priority for Haji in her new role. She said she wants the foundation’s work to be “integrated into broader movements and … not just bringing cases thinking we know what’s best for the community and how we can best support it.”

Haji added that the organization’s longer term goal is to become a self-sufficient legal practice that operates through attorney fees and fundraising. The foundation brings cases nationwide but is located in and most responsive to Los Angeles, she said. Startups can rise and fall with their founders because the company vision is too specific to the first set of leaders, Haji continued, noting that “success will be making sure that we’re sustainable.”

Born in Canada to Indian parents who grew up in East Africa, Haji moved to Texas as a young girl and described the experience as a “huge culture shock.” She started to feel more different from her peers after 9/11 and her adolescence in the suburbs of Houston “truly informed” what she wanted to do with her career, the attorney elaborated.

While she could have stayed at Hueston Hennigan and tried to become a partner at the firm, Haji said she went to law school wanting to be a public interest litigator and try cases like those brought by the foundation. “Working to ensure that the law is reflective of where we want to be as a country instead of where we are or have been is something that I value a lot,” she noted.

While the foundation wants to expand its staff and diversity in 2024, Haji said the priority remains advocating for their clients and causes. “I hope our clients come away with the sense that we are fighting for them and that our broader goal of changing and advancing the law is not at their expense,” said Haji. “I hope they think we’re creative and aggressive litigators who have their backs and are dedicated to giving them the best representation we can.”