NJCDLP is a nonprofit, good government advocacy organization. It was created to combat abuses of America's legal system that are facilitated by judicial misconduct. The organization initially focused on exposing unlawful judicial collusion through public interest litigation galvinized by other lawful forms of grassroots advocacy. But its ability to challenge that form of official misconduct through litigation has changed.
A major change occurred in 2009. NJCDLP co-founder and Board member Zena Crenshaw-Logal, describes the impact of a 2009, U.S. Supreme Court decision on lawsuits alleging judicial collusion to deny equal protection in her law review article, The Official End of Judicial Accountability Through Federal Rights Litigation: Ashcroft v. Iqbal:
With Iqbal there is not even a theoretical opportunity to establish through discovery an otherwise covert judicial conspiracy. As of Iqbal, a viable lawsuit simply cannot begin on that basis. And those cases dangling between covert and overt judicial conspiracies to deny equal protection mark for many if not most attorneys the gravesite of their careers. 'The punishment imposed for impugning judicial reputation has often been severe, with suspension from the practice of law not uncommon and, in at least one state, mandatory.'
The case Zena references is Ashcroft v. Iqbal. It has been described as a tool for promptly clearing highly subjective, contentious, arguably anti-establishment claims from court dockets. One author writes, “(d)etermining who is allowed to invoke the machinery of the civil justice system, and under what circumstances they may do so, lies at the core of how a system of law defines itself.”
So for now, NJCDLP primarily limits its activities to overseeing three (3) projects, showcased and accessible below. They are National Forum On Judicial Accountability (NFOJA); OAK (Organizations Associating for the Kind of Change America Really Needs); and POPULAR (Power Over Poverty Under Laws of America Restored).
Take a look at NJCDLP from 2004 - 2009:
Original Organization Overview
National Judicial Conduct and Disability Law Project, Inc.
Current NJCDLP Projects
NFOJA
National Forum On
Judicial Accountability
is a legislative initiative to vest randomly selected, trained, and rotating panels of private citizens with responsibility for state judicial disciplinary processes.
POPULAR
Power Over Poverty Under Laws of America Restored
is a legal reform organization focusing on civil and criminal justice system issues.
OAK
Organizations Associating for the Kind of Change America Really Needs
is a national coalition of grassroots advocates.
The Law Project on Daily Kos,
a community blog site voted 2nd best blog by Time magazine readers.