Public Interest Law Firm Stands With California YIMBY Advocacy Group to Protect First Amendment Rights

SAN FRANCISCO—Sonja Trauss is the executive director of the nonprofit organization YIMBY Law, which stands for “Yes In My Back Yard.” YIMBY Law is an organization dedicated to ending the housing shortage and achieving affordable, sustainable, and equitable housing in California. As part of their mission, Sonja and YIMBY Law send letters to cities, offering views on housing-related policies. This is a routine practice carried out by individuals and groups across the political spectrum every single day. But the California State Bar is now signaling the simple act of writing a letter to the government by Sonja and YIMBY Law is an unauthorized practice of law and is now demanding information of them with the threat of legal action. This is a clear violation of the First Amendment and the fundamental American right to petition the government. The Institute for Justice (IJ) is standing with Sonja and YIMBY Law demanding the Bar back down. If the Bar stands by their actions and moves forward to unconstitutionally violate YIMBY Law’s First Amendment rights, IJ will move forward with a lawsuit.

“There is nothing more American than the right to tell government officials you think they’re breaking the law,” said IJ Senior Attorney Sam Gedge. “The only thing you should need before writing to government officials is an opinion—not a license from the state.”

Last month—the day after Christmas, to be exact—Sonja received an email from an investigator with the Bar. The investigator advised that an attorney had filed a complaint against Sonja, asserting that Sonja and YIMBY Law had engaged in the unauthorized practice of law by sending a public letter to a city council in which they urged the council not to adopt a controversial housing policy. As the Bar summarized, the complaint asserts that Sonja and YIMBY Law are acting unlawfully by “writ[ing] letters to CA cities threatening legal action and stating incorrect housing laws and city ordinance laws.”

Instead of dismissing the complaint immediately (as it does for a good fraction of complaints it receives), the Bar has opened an investigation and has requested responses to a string of questions about Sonja’s and YIMBY Law’s activities by January 23.

This is a glaring First Amendment violation. Like everyone in America, Sonja and YIMBY Law have the right to send letters to local governments, telling officials to change their ways or to vote one way or another on contentious issues. They don’t need a law license to do so—to object to the laws that govern them, to urge public bodies to vote for or against a policy they care about. Indeed, one of the most fundamental rights as Americans is to speak up when we believe that those in power are misusing that power at the expense of the powerless.

“You shouldn’t have to be a lawyer to tell the government what you think,” said YIMBY Law Executive Director Sonja Trauss. “This goes beyond having a disagreement in policy, this is trying to end discussion entirely. Everyone in this nation has the right to petition the government.”

Founded in 1991, the Institute for Justice litigates nationwide to defend property rights, economic liberty, educational choice, and free speech. IJ is also the nation’s leading legal advocate defending occupational speech. In addition to representing Upsolve, IJ has represented a wide array of occupational-speech clients, including a veterinarian who was fined for answering questions about animals that he hadn’t physically examined, and a woman who was prohibited from giving end-of-life guidance because she was not a licensed funeral director. To find out more about IJ’s work defending the First Amendment, go here: https://ij.org/issues/first-amendment/.

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To arrange interviews on this subject, journalists may contact Phillip Suderman, IJ’s Communications Project Manager, at [email protected] or (850) 376-4110.