Attorneys.
Fixers.
Part-Time Adventurers.
RELUCTANT CYNIC LEGAL SERVICES is a public interest law firm dedicated to helping and supporting people working for the public good.
“What do you do?” is an important question, which we’ve answered on another page. The more important question is: “Why are we doing this work?”
All of us involved with Reluctant Cynic Legal Services are makers and multipotentialites. We aren’t just “business lawyers” or “nonprofit lawyers.” Our expertise covers law, science, humanities, technology, philosophy, religion, business, government, politics, or just about any other intellectual pursuit.
We are lawyers, counselors, advisors, strategists, and advocates. We are fixers.
We come from various backgrounds and pursuits, but all of us have a few things in common:
We’ve spent our lives working to help others solve problems;
Each of us have worked many different jobs with many different types of people;
Most of us spent our entire careers in public service of one type or another; and
Despite being vastly different people, we’ve managed to not just work together, but become good friends in the process.
We are here to help our clients do the same.
We have deep knowledge and undertanding as experts, but we don’t work alone. If we don’t know the answer to a question that comes up in our work, we certainly know how to research those answers or find the people with that knowledge.
We aren’t a large, multi-practice law firm with hundreds of people, nor are we a small firm narrowly focused on one type of practice. We strive for the middle ground between the two: a small group of incredibly flexible, creative, and knowledgeable people with great connections to a broader network of experts.
We bring our experience, empathy, and expertise to bear in many ways. We provide our clients with a range of services that are tailored to their specific needs and challenges. In addition to our legal work, we can help you with organizational development, lobbying and government affairs, mediating disputes (internally or externally), strategic planning, and workplace investigations. We are not just a law firm, we are a trusted partner and ally.
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We are angry, disgusted, and morose at the state of American government and politics. After giving some of the best years of our lives to improving government from within, we’ve re-joined the private sector, but we still strive to make government and politics better for everyone.
We are progressive and “woke” to the extent that we recognize the intersections among social injustices in the world and strive to do our part to restore justice and fairness. Our Privilege Busting Project is just one example of that commitment, but at the same time, we invite you to please call us out (politely) if you think we’re engaging in woke-washing.
We are also conservative to the extent that we believe in traditional institutions, practices, and values (that don’t hurt people). We believe that governments work best when they govern the least - as long as that government empowers and rewards all its constituents fairly, equally, and equitably. And as long as our governments serve We the People first, rather than protecting the interests of the wealthy elites at our expense. In that regard, we invite you to please call us out (politely) if you think we’re allowing institutions, practices, or traditions to trump the tragedies, tribulations, and trials of other people.
Overall, we are centrists, but not moderates. Our political and religious identities are just as fluid as other folks’ gender identities or sexual orientations. And we are probably not quite the iconoclasts we think we are.
We can work with just about anyone who wants to work with us: young or old, liberal or conservative (of any political party registration or none), rich or poor, college educated or not, religious or not, or anywhere in between on just about any demographic measure you can come up with.
About the only people we won’t work with are folks who mistake “Republican” for “conservative” these days. If you are conservative, we would love to work with you, but if you are a MAGA-style Republican, we doubt we would work well together.