We are dedicated to expanding access to law libraries in California’s prisons and jails.
The right of access to courts is fundamental to our democracy, but for many incarcerated people this right is meaningless without the ability to access a law library. If someone is unable to afford an attorney, without the tools to teach themselves the law they are unable to assert any of their legal rights.
About California Legal Research
California Legal Research is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to law libraries in California’s prisons and jails. The right of access to courts is fundamental to our democracy, but for many incarcerated people this right is meaningless without the ability to access a law library. If someone is unable to afford an attorney, without the tools to teach themselves the law they are unable to assert any of their legal rights.
Self-taught lawyers – oftentimes referred to as “jailhouse lawyers” – have been at the heart of the fight against unconstitutional prisons and jails for the past 80 years. Whether working alone, or in conjunction with bar-admitted lawyers, they operate at every level of the legal system: from helping their cellmates fill out basic legal forms to filing writs in the Supreme Court of the United States. In fact the case establishing the right to a public defender was filed by a man named Clarence Gideon – who taught himself the law while locked in a Florida prison.
California Legal Research is also in the early stages of developing a reentry program, to provide paralegal training to jailhouse lawyers who are returning home.
Who we are
Robert Ian Stringham
Executive Director
Ian Stringham co-founded California Legal Research with Edwin. They began working together while Ian was still in law school and Edwin was still incarcerated. Ian has a J.D from the Univerisity of California, Los Angeles School of Law and a B.A from the University of Pennsylvania. He was a 2018 UC Office of the President Public Interest Fellow, and a 2019 Justice Catalyst Fellow.
Edwin Gonzalez
Board of Directors
Edwin Nayam Gonzalez is a former jailhouse lawyer and Co-founder of California Legal Research. He entered the California prison system in 2001, after being sentenced to serve two life sentences. Despite struggling with the English language, he slowly began teaching himself the law to help himself and his peers navigate the legal system. Eventually, and without the aid of an attorney, Edwin was able to convince the California Supreme Court to consider his petition for a writ of Habeas Corpus. He gained his freedom in 2018. Edwin co-founded California Legal Research because he understands the importance of Jailhouse Laywers, having been one himself. As a jailhouse lawyer he didn’t just work on his own case, but helped hundreds of others around him. In addition to criminal law he would assist people with restraining orders, divorces, and drafting powers of attorney. He want’s to give jailhouse lawyers the resources they need to continue serving the legal needs of incarcerated people.
Michael Saavedra
Board of Directors
Michael Saavedra was recently released from prison on February 22, 2017 after being inside for over nineteen years – fifteen of which were spent in solitary confinement. During that time, he helped organize, lead, and participate in the 2011 and 2013 California prisoner hunger strikes to protest solitary confinement. He also studied and taught himself the law, using his knowledge to successfully sue the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation several times, and to teach others how to do the same. Michael is a Pathway to Law School student at Riverside City College and a UC Berkeley Underground Scholars Ambassador, having started Riverside City College’s first formerly imprisoned student organization. Michael was also chosen as a 2020 Justice Catalyst Fellow. Since his release, he has been working with many different social justice and anti-prison industrial complex organizations including L.A. Youth Justice Coalition, Critical Resistance, Dignity and Power Now, and Justice LA.
Kenneth Hartman
Board of Directors
Kenneth E. Hartman is an award-winning writer and prison reform activist. Sentenced to life without the possibility of parole at the age of 19, he served 38 years before California Governor Jerry Brown commuted his sentence. He was paroled on December 20, 2017 and remains free. Ken wrote about his experiences in his essay “A Prisoners' Purpose,” which won one of the John Templeton Foundation's 2004 Power of Purpose awards. His book Mother California: A Story of Redemption Behind Bars won the 2010 Eric Hoffer Award for memoir. In a December 2014 feature for Harper's magazine, he described three decades of prison Christmases. In December 2018, he published an essay in Harper’s addressing the impact of the intergenerational transmission of trauma in his family. In October 2019, he published another piece in Harper’s on the experiences of paroled long-term prisoners. Ken is a member of the Leadership Team of the Transformative In-Prison Workgroup, lobbying for real rehabilitative programming inside of the California prison system. He recently completed an internationally accredited Life Coach training program, and is a Certified Community Teaching Artist.