ArchCity was founded in 2009 by Thomas Harvey, Michael-John Voss, and John McAnnar in the styling of Robin Steinberg's The Bronx Defenders in the South Bronx neighborhood of New York City, considered the nation's first holistic defense organization. "Holistic defense" espouses offering services such as securing housing, drug treatment, or employment, in addition to legal services. The firm got started when McAnnar was furloughed from his firm during the recession of 2009, and Voss secured space at his firm, Reinert Weishaar & Associates, in the neighborhood of Laclede's Landing, St. Louis. The firm's budget grew from less than $75,000 in 2009 to $300,000 in 2013. The firm expanded in June 2013 through a contract under then Mayor Francis Slay's campaign to end chronic homelessness, through which it was later able to hire two staff attorneys. Harvey and Voss joined the firm full-time in 2014. The shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014 brought additional attention to ArchCity and its work. It produced a report on revenue predation by police departments and municipal courts in St. Louis County. In 2017, co-founder Harvey announced that he was leaving ArchCity to join his wife in Los Angeles and raising money for an effort to raise funds for cash bail. Employee Blake Strode was named Harvey's replacement. As of January 2018, the firm has 20 full-time staff with additional volunteers and year-round interns.
Executive Directors
Programs
ArchCity began in 2009 with clearing arrest warrants, and later expanded to a court-watching program in partnership with the Saint Louis University School of Law to statistically validate their clients' experiences in the court system. The court-watching program resulted in a "Municipal Courts White Paper" describing policy related to the municipal courts of St. Louis that began receiving significant national attention at the same time the shooting of Michael Brown and ensuing Ferguson unrest of police brutality protesting unfolded in August 2014. ArchCity expanded to provide legal representation to the people protesting, and subsequently filed a number of lawsuits targeting the "criminalization of poverty" as well as police brutality. In December 2014, ArchCity filed ten lawsuits against seven St. Louis County municipalities alleging constitutional abuses by their courts. ArchCity filed additional lawsuits against the cities of Ferguson and Jennings in February 2015, alleging Constitutional violations for jailing people without adequately considering their ability to pay. A class-action lawsuit was filed in 2016 against thirteen Missouri municipalities. In 2016, a federal judge approved a $4.7 million settlement to compensate people jailed in Jennings, Missouri for their inability to pay court fines and fees, covering 1,964 people collectively spending more than 8,000 nights in jail over a period from 2010 to 2015. Jennings separately settled to change its municipal court policies related to collecting unpaid fines and fees, moving to a civil collecting process instead of jail.
Fundraising
ArchCity is primarily funded through grants, legal fees from settlements and damages awards, and donations. It does not charge its clients any fees. ArchCity received some funds from a September 2015 settlement with the City of Jennings. ArchCity gets significant support from pro bono interns.
