Maya Forstater has written an interesting thread about the crowdfunder twitter.com/MForstater/status/1336450415362236416?s=19
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So what is going on with the Good Law Project crowdfunder?
Remember the initial launch was about a 14 year old transboy suing the NHS for delays - it raised about about £20K in the first days but has had a big boost since the Keira Bell judgment
The Good Law Project's crowdfunder is unusual.
Usually crowdjustice campaigns have a 'case owner' who is the individual claimant and a law firm who gets the money directly.
In this case both the case owner and the 'lawyers' are the Good Law Project
Is this allowed?
Normally to raise funds on crowdjustice you have have a lawyer instructed, or be working with a registered org "such as a charity".
The Good Law Project isn't a charity.
Its a company limited by guarantee.
So yes it is a "registered organisation" ... but its not clear that anyone who sets up a registered company for £12 can use it to raise money for themselves on CrowdJustice.
It would undermine the trust in the legal crowdfunding system if you could do that.
Crowd Justice usually require fundraising to be attached to a particular case but will transfer funds to a "general legal project" at their sole discretion
They usually require that you provide an accurate summary of the issues in the case, but that requirement seemed to be waived here.
It has not been at all clear what this money is being raised for
The Good Law Project has case criteria, but none of this says anything about issues of medical consent and children.
When selecting other projects they will consult with unnamed "other organisations"
Perhaps Gender GP owned by Harland International Ltd a 'global organisation which provides advocacy services for LGBTQI across the world' ?
@DanialWebb digs into Gender GP's ownership t.co/PrBoPE36gL
As @BarbaraRich_law notes they recently launched a "charitable fund" and then quickly renamed it when that got some scrutiny
t.co/TojwXyCR9p
Maugham has now appointed Molly Mulready a parent of a transexual child to convene an advisory group to decide what to spend the money on.
1... this is highly irregular for CrowdJustice campaigns (where you normally decide how to spend the money first)
2...the experience of Susie Green at Mermaids suggests that parents of a child having life altering treatment may not be best placed to manage broad policy advocacy
Crowd Justice are taking a lot of risks by waiving all the normal rules they set for legal crowdfunders here.
To @BluskyeAllison they said her case page was unnecessarily inflammatory about matters unconnected to her case.
For the Good Law Projects campaign they allowed Jolyon to call me a provocateur whose case was about "the right to misgender" (it isnt)
And also the usual stuff about an imaginary "astro-turfed coalition" funded by "by investment from anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-assisted dying US hate groups"
Much of CrowdJustice's model rests on the trust we place on the legal profession.
CrowdJustice doesn't assess the merits of the case, the lawyers do that.
Crowdjustice don't have to track how the money is used because it is government by the lawyer-client relationship.
Here they have given up those safeguards and are allowing a limited company to raise money for a child's case. Who is protecting the interests of the claimant - a child - Why did their parents not insist that the funds raised in their name went directly to their lawyers?
How can they be sure that the Good Law project is representing the interests of their child and not Gender GP, or whatever other undeclared organisations are driving this project?
So many questions... this seems like another example of how organisations abandon their usual rules and safeguards when confronted with the idea of trans children.
As the Keira Bell case highlighted, all children should be protected by these safeguards.