Ollin Law is re-envisioning the law and criminal justice in California. With our roots in communities beleaguered by violence, poverty, and police misconduct, we’ve taken it as our mission to transform the practice of law from a zero-sum game of winners and losers into a tool for healing, self-improvement, and reconciliation.
Having witnessed first-hand the uneven and often demographically targeted application of criminal justice, we are working to right the balance between accountability and compassion for all.
While allowing crime to go unaddressed is not the solution, neither is the criminalization of youth based on their skin color, zip code, or national origin. Violence and anti-social behaviors must be firmly addressed through comprehensive approaches that take into account socio-economic factors and multigenerational trauma.
Without this context we are locked into repetitive cycles of warehousing individuals and breaking up families.
At Ollin we take the position that accountability and compassion are not contradictory, but rather go hand and hand in a well-functioning system of justice.
Our position is not rooted simply in legal theory but in lived practice and observations of hundreds of clients we have served.
In tracking our clients’ long-term life trajectory, it is easy to see that those who have sought and received support to address their traumas in conjunction with high quality legal representation fare far better than those who only seek “to beat their case.”
With this understanding we refer clients to counseling and therapeutic services and give them equal priority with the technical details of legal representation.
