Flashlights: A Digital Archive of Jailhouse Lawyering
Launched in October 2024, is the first-ever digital archive dedicated to illuminating the long, often overlooked legacy of jailhouse lawyers in the U.S. carceral system. This groundbreaking project honors the legal resistance, intellectual labor, and advocacy of incarcerated legal workers—both past and present.
At the heart of Flashlights is a growing, interactive visual history of jailhouse lawyering. The archive also features the writings, artwork, and oral histories of more than 150 JLI members, capturing the full spectrum of jailhouse legal work: from individual case wins and systemic rights violations to moments of collective resistance, legal education, and inside-outside organizing.
Each story in Flashlights reveals the power of legal knowledge to transform not only individual lives but entire systems—and stands as a testament to the brilliance, resilience, and vision of jailhouse lawyers across generations.
A new version of the Flashlights website will launch in October 2025, featuring updated content from existing contributors, as well as new voices and multimedia pieces from across our national membership.
To view content from Flashlights:
Past Projects
UPL as a Human Rights Violation
In partnership with the Global Justice Clinic, the JLI has documented the impact of unauthorized practice of law rules on jailhouse lawyers and their communities, presented to community leaders, and submitted a request for a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. and to community.
Joint Submission to the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission
In February 2024, Christine ElDabh, JLI’s Legal Empowerment Fellow, and members of the National Lawyers Guild-Prison Chapter (NLG-PC) in Texas co-submitted a report to the and presented to the Commission in November 2024.
, and in The Prison Show.
Prison Teaching Project Collaboration with EPIC
JLI supported the work of the ÈâÂþÎÝ Law student group through curriculum co-development, legal empowerment training for students, and co-teaching legal research courses in New York prisons.