ORG recruiting legal director

Some of the Open Rights Group's learn'd friends are calling for help to enable ORG to recruit a legal director:

"We are lawyers who work with the Open Rights Group. 

You and the Open Rights Group can make a huge difference in the UK and European courts, defending your digital rights. That’s why we are asking you to join ORG today, so they can hire a Legal Director. We need just 40 more people to hire them full time.

 

But perhaps it’s best if we explain in our own words:
“The appointment of a legal director will make a real impact on the work of the Open Rights Group.  It has never been more important to have informed interventions at the High Court and appeal courts on matters to do with digital rights.
“I know from my own experience as appeal solicitor in the “Twitter Joke Trial” the difference it makes when courts properly understand technological issues, especially when imposing criminal liability on the citizen”
David Allen Green, solicitor at Preiskel & Co LLP, and member of Advisory Council, ORG.

“In the US, digital freedoms have been fought for and won in historic legal battles such as Reno v ACLU  and countless smaller cases where the EFF and other digital rights groups have helped take on cases involving freedom of speech online, privacy online, cyber- harassment, vindictive copyright enforcement and so on. In the UK until now civil society has never had the capacity to take such important legal cases. Help ORG hire a Legal Director to change this and bring UK law into the 21st century.”
Dr Lilian Edwards, ORG Advisory Council and Professor of Internet Law at Strathclyde University

“ORG is a vital partner with EFF in addressing mass surveillance. Just as GCHQ and NSA work together, it's increasingly critical that we strengthen the capabilities of groups on both sides of the Atlantic to push back to regain our privacy and free speech.”
Cindy Cohn, Legal Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation

“There is no doubt that Parliament and the Courts have struggled with the challenges posed by the explosion of online interaction and the growing importance of rights in an increasingly digital world. Decisions made now will shape the approach that the Law takes for decades and possibly longer. This is a key moment. ORG speaks up for those whose interests are usually discounted when it comes to governmental and judicial policy making – it speaks up for you and everyone else who lacks a vested interest and a lobbying budget. A Legal Director is exactly what ORG needs at exactly the time we all most need ORG.”
Seán Jones QC11KBW Chambers

“The law can be an instrument of repression but it can also be a powerful tool for change. Your support for ORG's Legal Director post can make a real difference in the fight for digital freedom in the UK.”
Eric Metcalfe, Monckton Chambers, former director of human rights policy at JUSTICE

“Please help with the appointment of a Legal Director for the Open Rights Group. In my personal experience, ORG have initiated valuable interventions on civil liberties issues affecting millions of adults in the UK, such as filtering.”
Myles Jackman, Law Society Junior Lawyer of the YearConsultant Solicitor-Advocate at Hodge Jones and Allen LLP @ObscenityLawyer

"As an American lawyer I've seen how important it is to have boots on the ground to defend civil liberties in court.  Even when the underlying law itself is designed to protect civil liberties, being able to appeal directly to the courts may be the only way to keep them protected not just in theory but in practice."
Cathy Gellis, US Tech and civil liberties lawyer

“I have had the honour of working with ORG to do some marvellous work: both intervening in high profile cases and working behind the scenes to help individuals who have fallen foul of laws that were not or should not have been drafted for the modern digital world. I am convinced that ORG could do so much more with the assistance of a full-time legal director and I am excited by all the things that ORG could do if it had one. Money pledged for this purpose will be money well spent.”
Francis Davey, Independent barrister and ORG legal volunteer
We need just 40 people to join to make this project happen.Please help us hire a full time Legal Director by joining the Open Rights Group today!
https://www.openrightsgroup.org/join/help-hire-orgs-legal-director

Yours,

ORG Legal volunteers and ORG Law group
_________

[1] British government to answer fast-track spy challenge https://www.privacynotprism.org.uk/news/2014/01/24/british-government-to-answer-fast-track-spy-challenge/"

Given this prompt I'd like to invite the academy to consider again the possibility of creating a network of digital rights cyberlaw clinics to provide ORG and their forthcoming legal director with pro bono support in critical cases.