advancing justice through innovation.
Founded in 2022, The Vanguard Collective LLC is a social innovation lab designed to empower individuals working in the legal system to take meaningful action in response to well-known but intractable problems. At the highest level, the problems The Vanguard Collective LLC endeavors to address are those that impede the just function of the legal system and undermine the public good that the system is supposed to serve. Experimentation within the context of discreet projects, organized by theme, allows us to explore how the legal profession can take action on existing research to address serious problems within and caused by the profession.
The Collective is meant to be a flexible and growth-minded endeavor, which means that the themes and projects we have identified thus far are necessarily incomplete. We would love to hear from you if you have suggestions for new themes or projects. To suggest either or both, please e-mail lisi@vanguardlawandpolicy.com.
WHAT IS AN Innovation lab?
Semi-autonomous or autonomous organization within a larger industry or system;
Engages diverse participants, on a long-term basis, in open collaboration for the purpose of creating, elaborating, and prototyping radical solutions to pre-identified systemic challenges;
Identifies open-ended themes, to create spaces for lab partners and collaborators to work on small-scale projects that respond to large-scale problems;
A focus on experimentation allows room for novel ideas to grow with the understanding that risk and failure may be part of the process;
Systemic thinking, long-term perspectives, and an orientation toward application produce disruptive outcomes within the relevant system.
Learn more about general innovation lab principles here.
PHILOSOPHY
WE CONDUCT OUR WORK UNDERSTANDING THAT THERE ARE TWO DISTINCT SOURCES OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR PERPETUATED HARMS WITHIN SYSTEMS: INSTITUTIONS AND INDIVIDUALS.
Institutional policies and cultural norms set the tone. Individual choices impact other people, the person making the choice, and the institutional ecosystem. By exploring, experimenting with, and eventually deploying individual and institutional-based solutions to some of the legal system’s biggest problems, The Vanguard Collective, LLC, addresses the complexity of perpetuated harm and offers real hope for meaningful change.
FOUNDER
LISI OWEN, ESQ.
Welcome! I’m Lisi Owen, the founder and Chief Vision Officer of The Vanguard Collective LLC. The Collective is borne out of nearly fifteen years of my work litigating cases about institutional misconduct, starting when I was in law school. Having spent my career bridging the distance between professional elites and those the legal system has marginalized, I am at once entirely disillusioned but also inspired to do my part to make the legal profession and the legal system just.
I am, by nature, both eternally optimistic and hopelessly stubborn. I believe that while there are big problems, there are no big answers, but that through little answers—especially those that empower individuals—we can collectively transform systems. In order to make that happen the legal system needs an intentionally created space to innovate. Thus, I give you The Vanguard Collective LLC, A Legal Innovation Lab.
Some of the work of the Collective will be mine, but my more important role here will be to amplify a network of amazing people doing groundbreaking work in our thematic areas. Please e-mail me (lisi@vanguardlawandpolicy.com) if you want to be part of that network, or if you know someone who you think should be part of that network.
PROJECTS
VANGUARD WOMEN’S COACHING
Vanguard Women's Coaching is an empowerment network for women lawyers, where we work to advance gender equity within the legal profession. Together, we inspire, train, and support women lawyers in taking leadership roles and, in particular, acquiring their fair share of the legal market share.
Just yoga
Just Yoga is our contribution to the crisis-level need for lawyer wellness support. By creating a yoga-based foundation for lawyers to access wellness resources, we hope to begin the essential work of helping lawyers live healthier lives and, in turn, doing justice in their professional work.
vanguard legal consulting
The Vanguard Collective, LLC's principal, Lisi Owen, provides strategic counsel in complex litigation and litigation involving institutional misconduct. Lisi's primary background is in civil rights and insurance litigation, though she is an adept strategist in a variety of contexts, especially those implicating constitutional concerns and matters of statutory interpretation.
Vanguard Justice
Vanguard Justice is a criminal justice think tank dedicated to bridging the gap between theory and practice. Collectively, the projects we undertake here are designed to move us away from carceral dependence and toward one justice system that treats everyone equally no matter who they are, who they know, or how much money they have.