About Us
The Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center is a public interest law firm founded in 1985 by the family of J. Roderick MacArthur to advocate for human rights and social justice through litigation. The MacArthur Justice Center became part of Northwestern University School of Law's Bluhm Legal Clinic in 2006.
As one of the premier civil rights organizations in the United States, the MacArthur Justice Center represents individuals and organizations in trial litigation across the country. It pursues cases focused on addressing systemic injustice within the criminal legal system, including police abuse; ending the punishment of poverty, including the practice of cash bail; and standing against the oppression of marginalized communities, including protecting the rights of prisoners, immigrants, voters and protesters.
It currently operates offices in Illinois (in partnership with the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law), Louisiana, Mississippi (at the University of Mississippi School of Law), Missouri and Washington D.C. MacArthur attorneys hold clinical faculty appointments at Harvard, University of Mississippi and Northwestern law schools and frequently partner with state and federal public defenders, private attorneys, and large law firms.
Who We Are
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John Conroy, Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center Senior Investigator
John Conroy serves as Senior Investigator at the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. Within the Civil Rights Litigation Clinic, he lectures on investigating official misconduct and works with students in the Civil Rights Litigation Clinic primarily on wrongful conviction and prisoner’s rights cases. Prior to joining the MacArthur Justice Center, he was Director of Investigations at the DePaul College of Law Legal Clinic, and prior to that he was an investigative reporter whose work was published in numerous publications. He has written nonfiction books on Northern Ireland and on torture, and is the author of a play, produced in 2012 and published in 2015, set against the backdrop of the Chicago Police torture scandal. Learn more about John.
Alexa Van Brunt, Director of the MacArthur Justice Center Clinic at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and Clinical Associate Professor of Law
Alexa Van Brunt is the Director of the MacArthur Justice Center Civil Rights Litigation Clinic at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. Within the clinic, she supervises teams of students, who work on class action suits challenging discrimination and excessive force by law enforcement, the violation of prisoners' rights in correctional facilities, denial of access to counsel for people in custody, wrongful conviction damages actions, and the elimination of cash bond in the criminal courts. Prior to joining the Justice Center, she clerked for the Hon. Myron Thompson, U.S. District Court – Middle District of Alabama. Alexa is a graduate of Stanford Law School and Brown University. Learn more about Alexa and her cases.
Our Story
