About Us
Law Forward exists to protect and strengthen democracy in Wisconsin. Law Forward stands for a fair, transparent, and truly representative government – where every vote counts and everyone’s voice is heard.
Our Team
Law Forward opened in 2020 with a mission of protecting democracy. That started with redistricting litigation and one staff attorney. Today, Law Forward has grown to a staff of six and works on multiple fronts to protect our freedoms and fight for a state where everyone can participate in free, fair elections and where their votes matter.
What We Do
At Law Forward, Wisconsin’s only nonprofit pro-democracy law firm, we fight every day to revitalize our democracy and expand our rights under the Wisconsin Constitution. With the support of people like you, we’ve achieved major victories for the residents of Wisconsin. In 2023, we overturned the nation’s most extreme partisan gerrymander putting Wisconsin on a path to a truly representative government. In 2024, we overturned the anti-union Act 10 law revitalizing a bedrock democratic institution and ushering in a new era of labor rights. We look forward to bringing more transformative cases in the coming years.
Litigating legislative overreach
Law Forward confronts legislative malfeasance on all available grounds—procedural errors, substantive shortcomings, and inconsistency with the state and federal constitutions.
Test-driving new legal ideas
Law Forward develops and litigates powerful test cases. We advance innovation by convening and participating in discussions about new approaches. We work on our own and in partnership with academics, legal scholars, and partner organizations to build a new strategic vision of the law.
Challenging administrative action—and inaction
Law Forward engages at all stages of those processes, monitoring regulatory development, challenging unlawful application (or avoidance) of existing regulatory provisions, and using oft-neglected statutory mechanisms to ensure that agencies fulfill their regulatory mandates.
Our Impact
Law Forward was launched in 2020 because the rightwing legal movement had systemically used litigation to achieve legislative and legal objectives to consolidate power among the few. From restricting access to the polls, entrenching minority-rule through partisan gerrymandering, and undoing the framework of Wisconsin’s democracy; we are on the frontlines repeaing these anti-democratic attacks.
Law Forward is a pro-voter, pro-democracy nonprofit that was created because Wisconsin needed a legal organization that could strategically develop the law in the progressive tradition Wisconsin is known for. We build cases and identify opportunities to protect the right to vote and strengthen free and fair elections. Our work engages policymakers, the legal community, and the public on legal issues, expanding both opportunities and demand for progressive change.
Challenged Wisconsin's gerrymandered maps - and won.
We filed an original action with the Supreme Court of Wisconsin challenging the nation’s most extreme gerrymander because equal weight should be given to all Wisconsinites’ voices. We won, and on Feb. 19, 2024, Gov. Evers signed the fist non-gerrymandered maps in over a decade. The new Wisconsin Legislature, sworn in on January 6, 2025, more closely matches the will of the people.
Held election deniers accountable.
The coordinated and deliberate effort to subvert the will of the voters following the November 2020 elections must never happen again. We brought a first-of-its-kind civil suit against Wisconsin’s fake electors and the attorneys who orchestrated the scheme. We’ve also filed grievances with the Office of Lawyer Regulation against Michael Gableman, James Troupis, and Andrew Hitt. We will continue to monitor the actions of other election deniers and their efforts to disrupt Wisconsin elections.
Overturned the anti-union Act 10 law.
We obtained a court ruling striking down the anti-union policies passed in 2011 Wisconsin Act 10, restoring the fundamental human right of collective bargaining to all workers in our state’s public-sector unions–themselves a Wisconsin innovation generations ago.
Protected free, fair elections.
Every election cycle, we battle in state and federal courts to expand voting rights and to repel efforts by those committed to narrowing those rights and limiting participation in our elections. Every vote, and every voter, must count!