Need money for an expert witness, legal fees or bail? Some turn to crowdfunding
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Pennsylvania pro bono lawyer Justin McShane turned to crowdfunding when he needed to pay for expert witnesses in a wrongful conviction case he had taken on pro bono. He raised more than $8,000 from the online pitch.
He’s not the only lawyer to see the value in crowdfunding, the Marshall Project reports. A lawyer created a crowdfunding site called Funded Justice to help people pay for a lawyer in criminal or civil cases. This fall, the Orleans Public Defenders in Louisiana used crowdfunding when confronting a $1 million budget deficit and raised $86,000.
Litigants and criminal defendants have also used popular crowdfunding sites such as Indiegogo and GoFundMe to raise money for bail, legal fees and fines, according to the article.
In some cases, however, monetary appeals on behalf of criminal defendants have been shunned by crowdfunding sites that cite their terms of use or standards. Both GoFundMe and Indiegogo have shut down fundraising appeals for officers involved in the deaths of suspects. GoFundMe, for example, bars crowdfunding for defendants accused of “heinous crimes, violent, hateful, sexual or discriminatory acts.”
See also:
ABA Journal: “Crowdfunding can be a great way to finance your case–or destroy it”
