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About Us

The Good Law Project is a not-for-profit membership organisation that uses the law to protect the interests of the public. We fight cases that defend, define or change the law and we use litigation to engage and educate. We challenge abuses of power, exploitation, inequality, and injustice.

We are a bold, young, organisation with a ground-breaking track record. We speak the truth and act with integrity. You can learn more about our organisations and our achievements in 2019 in our annual report.

The Good Law Project is a private not for profit company limited by guarantee (Company Registration Number 10556197).  You can read our constitution here. Our assets and funding are used for the benefit of the community and no one in the organisation can be paid more than the annual salary of a backbench UK MP. We maintain a strategic risk register which is reviewed and updated at every board meeting.
The Good Law Project is primarily funded by members of the public through regular and one-off donations, as well as crowd-funded donations to cover the costs of specific litigation. We are incredibly grateful to all our supporters without whom we could not continue our work. Regular and one-off donations fund the core costs of our strategic litigation programme, including costs of legal staff who identify and develop our cases. They also cover our general running costs, including our financial management and administration, membership support and fundraising activities. For all grants and donations given for specific activities, the Good Law Project takes 10% to cover our core running costs. We are committed to transparency in our finances, and we accept donations and grants in accordance with the donations policy. Our accounts for the year to 31 January 2020 can be found here. We publish information about our finances in our annual report each year. Our 2019 annual report is available here.
The Good Law Project manages its finances in accordance with policies and procedures approved by its board. We do not exist to generate a profit. We plan to match our expenditure with our income whilst maintaining a reasonable level of reserves to ensure that we are able to respond to opportunities and adapt should we face adverse events.
We use monthly and one-off donations to cover the staff and other costs of researching potential cases, developing and progressing our litigation, keeping our donors and supporters updated and communicating more widely about our work, ensuring that our finances are well-managed and controlled and running our organisation. Case-specific donations are used to cover the costs of the relevant litigation, with a modest contribution towards our ongoing core costs. Any case funds remaining after all the litigation costs have been covered are used in accordance with the case details published.
One of the most important decisions we make relates to which litigation to take forward. We select the legal cases that we progress in accordance with clear board-approved criteria.
We are not currently recruiting for any roles.

Our Board

Our Board oversees the work we do and sets our strategic direction. Read more about our current board members below.

The Good Law Project is the brainchild of Jo Maugham QC, barrister and author of the popular blog waitingfortax.com. Jo is a regular contributor in the national media. He has written for or appeared in the Financial Times, the Guardian, the Times, Wall Street Journal, Mail, Mirror, Telegraph, BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and many others. Jo became a Queen’s Counsel in 2015. He has been profiled by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Quartz and others. He is an honorary Professor at the University of Durham. He has advised the UK government and the official Opposition on tax policy and is described by The Times as ‘one of the country’s leading barristers’. A campaigner as well as a lawyer, Jo has raised well over £1m in crowd funding for legal challenges, and through The Good Law Project has won a number of internationally renowned constitutional law cases. Follow Jo on Twitter: @JolyonMaugham.

Sam Smethers is the Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society, the UK’s leading charity campaigning for gender equality and women’s rights. Prior to that she was the Chief Executive of Grandparents Plus for over six years. She had previously worked for the Equal Opportunities Commission as Director of Public Affairs and also has nine years’ experience of working in parliament. Sam is a trustee of Equally Ours, a UK charity that brings together people and organisations working across equality, human rights and social justice to make a reality of these in everyone’s lives. She is also a former Trustee of the Fawcett Society and of single parent charity Gingerbread.

Stewart Wood is a Labour member of the House of Lords and a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford University, where he taught politics from 1995 to 2011. His academic research focused on political economy in western Europe and issues of UK public policy. From 2001 to 2007 he was a member of the Treasury’s Council of Economic Advisers, working on public policy issues for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. From 2007 to 2010 he worked at 10 Downing Street as a Senior Special Adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, leading on foreign policy; culture, media and sports policy; and Northern Irish affairs. From 2010-2015 he was a member of the Labour Shadow Cabinet and an adviser to Labour Leader Ed Miliband. He now serves as a Labour member of the House of Lords EU Select Committee. And since 2017 he has been Chair of the United Nations Association UK.

Rupert Evans is Chair of the Good Law Project, Managing Director of TranslateMedia and a non-executive director of Colchester Oyster Fishery. Rupert’s main job is running TranslateMedia, a language translation business which he co-founded. He is also an active non-executive, as Chair of the Good Law Project and a board member of Colchester Oyster Fishery, one of the UK’s largest and oldest oyster fisheries. Rupert is based in London but has lived and worked in Amsterdam and Hong Kong. He is a director of TranslateMedia subsidiaries in America, China and Poland and has previously directed businesses in France, Germany, Hungary and Serbia. Rupert is married and a father of three and therefore has limited spare time but is a former president of Oxford University’s juggling club.