Mobilising the Market: An Empirical Analysis of Crowdfunding for Judicial Review Litigation

Abstract

This article provides an analysis of 413 crowdfunding campaigns raising funds for judicial review cases. In doing so, it empirically captures the judicial review crowdfunding landscape for the first time, drawing attention to the divergent rates of funding and generating a profile of the actors using the resource based on their geographic scope and their litigation experience. Noting the proliferation of campaigns seeking social goals beyond the immediate litigation, it argues that crowdfunding reveals, and gives rise to, an important reality of legal mobilisation that has received insufficient recognition – the use of law for social change by groups that are inexperienced or locally‐oriented. It therefore constructs a typology for understanding these broader patterns of legal mobilisation, accounting for the dimensions of scale and litigation experience.