Motion For Justice

A resource hub that equips prosecutors—the legal system’s powerful gatekeepers and decision makers—to reduce racism-fueled harm to Black and brown communities.

Service

Capabilities

The challenge

In recent years, criminal justice reform has gained much-needed, long-overdue attention, as decades of work by activists and organizers have entered mainstream consciousness. But often, the focus has been on public defenders, leaving prosecutorial power unexamined and unchecked.

Motion For Justice

A strategic focus

Vera Institute of Justice and the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College have teamed up to highlight the importance of changing the hearts and minds—and most importantly, the actions—of prosecutors. With a laser focus on a specific subset of the legal process, Motion For Justice speaks directly to over 2,300 prosecutors offices nationwide.

A Black woman and a Black man stand under an umbrella, facing away from the camera, observing a crowd gathered outside a brick building. Some people are seen looking out from the building's windows. The scene appears to be from the mid-20th century.

A smartphone screen displays an article from "Motion for Justice." Sections on the screen include "History," "Values," and "Action Steps," with brief descriptions. The article discusses the role of prosecutors in racial inequity in the legal system.

Inspiration meets information

Motion For Justice strikes a balance between approachable and serious, careful to respect the gravity of the issues at hand while creating a space that encourages genuine engagement. In crafting the name Motion For Justice, we played on the term for filing a motion, “A written or oral application made to a court or judge to obtain a ruling or order directing that some act be done in favor of the applicant.” Leveraging the technical noun to do double duty as a verb emphasizes the future-focused momentum of MFJ. And the left-justified double rules that run across the site echo the aesthetic of legal briefs.

A smartphone screen displaying a "Motion for Justice" app with three sections: "Educate" (teach racial justice principles to future lawyers), "Train" (instill prosecutors with core values and practices), and "Decline" (reduce the reach of the criminal legal system).

A black and white photo showing a group of people walking on a city street. In the foreground, a man pushes a cart filled with files. Behind him, a woman in a plaid skirt and blazer walks while holding a folder. Office buildings surround the group.

Long-form content for long-term change

Eschewing surface-level activism, the Motion For Justice website is filled with in-depth resources (yes, there are footnotes!) to effect real, informed change. We created an engrossing yet navigable user flow to guide visitors: a clean, bold home page that unfurls to reveal detailed information across histories, values, action steps, and strategies.

Three smartphones display different screens of an advocacy website. The left phone shows text about values and racial equity. The middle phone features a video with text about justice. The right phone displays images and terms: truth, dignity, and accountability.

Two colleagues collaborate by placing sticky notes on a glass wall in an office. The man, in a dark suit, observes while the woman, in a white sleeveless top, focuses on sticking a note. Both appear engaged in brainstorming or project planning.

A picture’s worth a thousand words

In addition to the core audience of prosecutors, Motion For Justice also serves impacted communities—as a reference point, documenting the history of oppression through targeted prosecution, and as a resource for organizers ready to take action. Rounding out the written resources are an abundance of powerful photographs and video interviews, lending a sense of humanity and immediacy to the brand.