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Alec Karakatsanis

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Alec Karakatsanis
Born (1983-11-07) November 7, 1983 (age 41)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
EducationYale University (BA)
Harvard University (JD)
WebsiteOfficial website

Alec Karakatsanis (born November 7, 1983) is an American civil rights lawyer. He is the co-founder of Equal Justice Under Law. Karakatsanis' legal work has targeted the American money bail system.[1] He also opposes copaganda, publishing a book on the topic in 2025.[2][3]

In 2016, Karakatsanis was awarded the Stephen B. Bright Award by Gideon's Promise[4] and the Trial Lawyer of the Year Award by Public Justice.[5][6]

Education and career

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Karakatsanis graduated from Yale College in 2005 with a degree in Ethics, Politics, & Economics. He enrolled immediately at Harvard Law School, where he was a Supreme Court Chair of the Harvard Law Review, and graduated with a J.D. in 2008.[7][8][9] After law school, Karakatsanis worked as a federal public defender in Alabama and then in the Special Litigation Division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia for several years.[10][9][11] Karakatsanis founded Equal Justice Under Law with Harvard Law School classmate Phil Telfeyan in 2014, but later split to found Civil Rights Corps in 2016.[12][13] Numerous U.S. media outlets have featured Karakatsanis' work, including The New Yorker,[14] The Huffington Post,[15] The Washington Post,[16] The Marshall Project,[17] and The New York Times.[18]

In 2016, Karakatsanis challenged the use of money bail in Harris County, Texas as lead attorney of Civil Rights Corps, in a federal lawsuit supported by the Harris County Sheriff's Office.[19][20][21] A year earlier, in July 2016, Civil Rights Corps and ArchCity Defenders received a landmark settlement when the city of Jennings, Missouri agreed to pay $4.7 million to 2,000 people incarcerated in its jail for inability to pay traffic tickets and other minor fees.[22]

In 2025, he has published a book "Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News" which breaks down all the ways that our news ecosystem is polluted with pro-police PR.

Selected publications

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  • Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News. The New Press. April 15, 2025. ISBN 9781620978535.[23]
  • Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System. New York: The New Press. 2019. ISBN 978-1-62097-527-5.
  • "The Human Lawyer" (PDF). N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change. 34: 563–593. 2010.
  • "United States v. Hungerford: Ninth Circuit Affirms Mandatory Sentence" (PDF). Harvard Law Review. 120 (7): 1988–1995. 2007. ISSN 0017-811X.
  • "Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers". Harvard Law Review Forum. 128 (6). April 28, 2015.
  • "President Obama's Department of Injustice". The New York Times. August 18, 2015. ISSN 0362-4331.
  • "Why US v Blewett is the Obama Justice Department's greatest shame". The Guardian. July 23, 2013. ISSN 0261-3077.

Awards

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  • 2016 Trial Lawyer of the Year (Public Justice)[5]
  • 2016 Stephen B. Bright Award (Gideon's Promise)[24]
  • 2016 Emerging Leader Award (Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership at the University of Pittsburgh)[25]

References

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  1. ^ Zuckerman, Michael (August 15, 2017). "Criminal Injustice". Harvard Magazine. Retrieved October 24, 2022.
  2. ^ Rampell, Ed (October 21, 2022). "Seeing through the Copaganda". Progressive.org. Retrieved October 25, 2022.
  3. ^ Golding, Yona TR (April 16, 2025). "Q&A: Alec Karakatsanis on the Media's Role in Spreading 'Copaganda'". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved May 5, 2025.
  4. ^ Quinceno, Ronald. "Review of Alec Karakatsanis' "Unusual Cruelty" by Ronald Quinceno, Incarcerated at Hutchinson Correctional Facility". Liberation Lit. Retrieved May 5, 2025.
  5. ^ a b "Cases Regarding American Money Bail System and Financing of Terrorism Awarded Public Justice's 2016 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award". Public Justice. July 25, 2016. Retrieved May 5, 2025.
  6. ^ "Public Justice Announces Finalists for 2016 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award". Public Justice. June 8, 2016. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  7. ^ "Alec Karakatsanis, Co-Founder, Equal Justice Under Law". Program in Law and Public Affairs | Princeton University. Retrieved May 5, 2025.
  8. ^ Zuckerman, Michael. "Alec Karakatsanis '08 puts 'human caging' and 'wealth-based detention' in America on trial". Harvard Law School. Retrieved May 5, 2025.
  9. ^ a b Karakatsanis, Alec (2015). "Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers". Harvard Law Review. Retrieved May 5, 2025.
  10. ^ Darrington, Patrick (May 9, 2023). "What Copaganda Is and Why It's So Dangerous". Teen Vogue. Retrieved May 5, 2025.
  11. ^ "Alec Karakatsanis (2023)". JFK Library. Retrieved May 5, 2025.
  12. ^ McArdle, Elaine (November 24, 2014). "Fighting Unequal Justice". Harvard Law Today. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  13. ^ Zuckerman, Michael (August 15, 2017). "Alec Karakatsanis fights for criminal-justice reform in the U.S. legal system". Harvard Magazine. Retrieved May 5, 2025.
  14. ^ Eric, Markowitz (August 11, 2016). "The Link Between Money and Aggressive Policing". The New Yorker. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  15. ^ Reilly, Ryan J. (August 26, 2016). "'People Who Work In The System Become Desensitized To How Brutal It Is To Cage Someone'". Huffington Post. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  16. ^ "The District police's unreasonable searches and seizures". The Washington Post. March 8, 2016. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  17. ^ Santo, Alysia (October 1, 2015). "How to Fight Modern-Day Debtors' Prisons? Sue the Courts". The Marshall Project. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  18. ^ Dewan, Shaila (October 23, 2015). "Court by Court, Lawyers Fight Policies That Fall Heavily on the Poor". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  19. ^ "First Amended Class Action Complaint" (PDF). ODonnell v. Harris County, Texas et al. U.S. District Court SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS. August 31, 2016. Case No. 16-cv-01414; Document 51-1. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 12, 2018 – via Squarespace.
  20. ^ "Parties for ODonnell v. Harris County, Texas, 4:16-cv-01414". CourtListener. Retrieved May 5, 2025.
  21. ^ Flynn, Meagan (February 9, 2017). "Claiming Some People 'Want to Be in Jail,' County Loses Argument to Delay Bail Lawsuit". Houston Press. Retrieved May 5, 2025.
  22. ^ Robertson, Campbell (July 15, 2016). "Missouri City to Pay $4.7 Million to Settle Suit Over Jailing Practices". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  23. ^ "Copaganda". The New Press. Retrieved May 5, 2025.
  24. ^ "A Lunch Talk by Alec Karakatsanis, 'Body Cameras, Copaganda, and the Fraud of 'Police Reform.". Systemic Justice Project. Harvard Law School. Retrieved May 5, 2025.
  25. ^ "Emerging Leaders". Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership. University of Pittsburgh. Retrieved May 5, 2025.
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