Advancing Real Change (ARC)

As life history investigators (often referred to as mitigation specialists) and record collection specialists, we work as members of defense teams at both the trial and post-conviction phases of cases. We engage in multi-generational and multi-disciplinary inquiries into the life histories of our client and their communities through the collection of documents and multiple conversations with our clients, their families and friends, and acquaintances. By doing so, we come to understand the trajectories of our clients' lives, which, in turn, allows the defense team to be better advocates. The information gathered in the course of these investigations is often presented to prosecutors or courts to help them make more just decisions about the fate of our clients as they are often concerned with the circumstances of the individual defendant when deciding how best to proceed in a particular case.We work on cases all around the United States and have experience at the state and federal levels.