No One Should Fight Alone

Public defenders are often forced to handle complex constitutional issues with almost no time to research them. The result is an uneven playing field — one that Defense Brief is built to correct.

My Story

Several years ago I was charged in California with a firearms offense that I knew violated the Second Amendment.

I reached out to a prominent Second Amendment law firm. I could not afford the retainer and was appointed a public defender. At that point I had almost no support. The people closest to me were overwhelmed by the stress of the situation, and I found myself fighting largely alone. Rather than leave my rights in someone else’s hands, I went to work. I spent countless hours studying active cases from CRPA, SAF, FPC, and GOA. I researched, drafted, and handed my public defender strong constitutional arguments and case citations.

He later admitted something that has stayed with me: he never would have had the time to put that work together himself.

My charges were ultimately dropped. But I walked away deeply disturbed. I realized that if I — someone willing and able to do the research — had not done that work myself, the outcome would almost certainly have been different. And I could not stop thinking about the many defendants who do not have the knowledge, time, or capacity to do what I did.

That experience exposed a systemic gap. Public defenders carry crushing caseloads. They rarely have the bandwidth to track rapidly evolving post-Bruen case law or to locate the strongest arguments that have already worked in similar cases. The result is an uneven playing field: defendants with resources or the right personal networks can access high-quality work product; those relying on appointed counsel often cannot.

We are building a platform that gives public defenders immediate access — for free — to high-quality, court-tested constitutional tools when they need them most:

• • The Motion Bank — a curated library of strong motions organized by charge type, jurisdiction, and real-world outcomes
• • Judge Intelligence Profiles — insight into how specific judges have ruled on similar issues
• • The Originalist Research Engine — tools to surface historical sources and constitutional arguments quickly

Today we already have over 114 curated and tagged motions in the system, and the Motion Bank is live in production. This is only the beginning.

My vision is simple: No defendant should ever have to do their lawyer’s job just to defend their constitutional rights. No public defender should have to stand before a judge unprepared because they lacked the time to find the best arguments.

That is why we are building Defense Brief — and why we intend to make it available free of charge to public defenders across the country.