03/23/2026
Two weeks ago, our team lost at trial in our class-action lawsuit challenging pretrial fees in Ravalli County, Montana. What began as a lawsuit with a handful of named plaintiffs in August 2021 evolved into something bigger than our individual plaintiffs, bigger than Equal Justice Under Law, and bigger than Ravalli County. Over the course of nearly five years, we uncovered thousands of documents and records, hundreds of affected class members, dozens of devastating stories, and hundreds of thousands of dollars collected by the Ravalli County Sheriff's Office on the backs of the community’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens.
A loss in court does not erase what this case uncovered, and it does not diminish what this case meant to our clients. Their stories made it into a courtroom, and our team gave thousands of hours of work to make sure our clients were heard. The work we do to end wealth-based discrimination in the criminal justice system is bigger than any single verdict, including this one.
Each Complaint we file, each motion we argue, and each story we tell is itself a win. We lost this one, but we are not defeated, and we are more proud than ever to stand with our clients.
Read our full reflections on the case written by our attorney, Lily Milwit, and where we go from here:
Our team lost at trial in our class-action lawsuit challenging pretrial fees in Ravalli County, Montana. It’s a sentence I hoped I would never write, and one that, as trial prep and trial commenced throughout the last few months, I firmly believed I’d never have to. What began as a lawsuit with ...
