You Know IJ. Learn How It Began.

IJ was founded in 1991, but the story of how it came to be started nearly a decade earlier, in Chip Mellor’s backyard in Denver, Colorado. That’s where Chip, reeling from a principled stand that had cost him his job, and his friend and colleague Clint Bolick promised each other that they would create a new kind of public interest law firm.

They had ambitions to change the world. They just had to figure out how to do it.

Whip and Ride: The Hard-Charging Early Years of the Institute for Justice tells the story of how IJ grew from that backyard promise into a national public interest law firm and a force for liberty across the country. 

It follows the real people behind some of IJ’s defining early cases. Longtime readers of Liberty & Law will recognize many of them. IJ’s first client, a D.C. hair braider who saw a news story about another entrepreneur fighting the city for the right to keep his business alive and thought, “That’s me.” Milwaukee parents determined to find better schools for their children. New York City van drivers keeping their communities moving. Homeowners fighting eminent domain abuse. 

But the book is also a chance to see IJ from the inside.

As IJ marks our 35th anniversary, more and more people who know and support IJ today did not know Chip personally. They did not know Clint in those early years. And they did not see firsthand the cases, arguments, missteps, and hard-won lessons that shaped the organization IJ would become.

That is critical because so much of why—and how—IJ does what it does comes from that history.

We can and do pass on institutional knowledge through our training programs and leading by example. But culture is also carried through stories: the moments people repeat because they explain who we are and what we value.

The goal of Whip and Ride is to show, not just tell, how IJ became the kind of organization it is.

IJ is a very human place. Clients and their stories have always been the focus because our cases are not just about legal theories; they are about real people whose lives, homes, businesses, families, and futures are at stake. But that emphasis on people matters internally, too. IJ’s history is more than a record of cases. It is a story of attorneys, staff, supporters, and friends who took big risks for a cause they believed in.

The title comes from a phrase Chip often used in the early years to close staff meetings and project kickoffs: “Whip and ride.” The phrase captures so much of his spirit—and of IJ’s character. There is Western grit in it, inspired by Chip’s love for the Mountain West, but also urgency, creativity, humor, and a refusal to sit around waiting for perfect conditions before getting started.

That ethos still propels IJ. If you are with us in the fight for a more free and just America, you understand the urgency of the work and the fact that each of us has a role to play in carrying it forward. Whip and ride.

A Note From the Editor

This is not your typical issue of Liberty & Law.

Thirty-five years ago, a handful of idealistic lawyers set out to build a different kind of law firm, with more nerve than resources and no guaranteed success. Whip and Ride, IJ’s history of those earliest years, captures just how scrappy, improvised, and driven by sheer determination that period really was.

That same determination is the thread running through this expanded issue. Several of the articles here look back on IJ initiatives that have spanned decades—adapting strategy, pressing every opening, and building the law case by case until what once seemed radical became obvious. These retrospectives are a reminder that real change takes creativity sustained over years until freedom is secure.

This issue also brings news of what’s next for IJ. As always, that same determination will continue to drive us as we evolve our work and sharpen our focus. 

Thirty-five years in, IJ isn’t slowing down; we’re just getting started. Thank you for standing with us.