No One Will Take My § 1983 Case. Why?

You called civil rights lawyer after civil rights lawyer. Maybe you tried other cities too. Some never called back. The ones who did said some version of “we can’t take your case” — or worse, “it’s not economically viable.”

You’re not alone. This is the norm, not the exception. And it’s probably not because your case is bad.

The economics of a civil rights case

How civil rights lawyers get paid

Under 42 U.S.C. § 1988, a prevailing plaintiff in a § 1983 case can recover attorney fees from the defendant. In practice, this means most civil rights attorneys work on contingency: they invest their time up front and only get paid if you win.

If you lose — and most § 1983 cases lose — the lawyer gets nothing. Not reduced fees. Not partial payment. Zero. For what might be two to four years of work.

The math your lawyer is doing

Here’s what that calculation actually looks like:

A typical § 1983 case requires 500 to 2,000+ hours of attorney time — researching, drafting motions, fighting discovery battles, taking depositions, preparing for trial. At even $300/hour, that’s $150,000 to $600,000 in time investment the lawyer is risking.

Your damages? If you were wrongfully arrested and spent a few hours in jail with no physical injury, realistic damages might be $5,000 to $25,000. Maybe less. The lawyer is risking $300,000 in time for a chance at recovering $25,000 in damages plus fees — and the fees only come if you win, and then the city fights the fee amount too.

The lawyer isn’t evaluating whether your rights were violated. They’re multiplying probabilities:

Chance of surviving the motion to dismiss × chance of surviving summary judgment × chance of beating qualified immunity × chance of winning at trial × likely damages × likelihood of actually collecting fees.

If any one of those factors is low, the expected value drops below what the lawyer could earn doing literally anything else. Qualified immunity alone makes the probability of surviving summary judgment low enough to kill most cases before the math even gets to trial.

The $1 verdict: Farrar v. Hobby

If the math wasn’t bad enough, there’s Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103 (1992).

The plaintiff won at trial. The jury found the defendant liable and awarded $1 in nominal damages. One dollar. Then the plaintiff sought attorney fees under § 1988 — the statute that’s supposed to make civil rights enforcement economically viable.

The Supreme Court held that winning $1 doesn’t entitle you to meaningful attorney fees. The attorney who spent years on the case got nothing.

This is the nightmare scenario for every civil rights lawyer: you prove the violation happened, a jury agrees with you, and you still don’t get paid. Cities know this. Their defense strategy often focuses on minimizing your damages to make the fee recovery not worth the risk — even if they can’t dispute the constitutional violation itself.

Cases lawyers take — and cases they don’t

What makes a case “viable” (from the lawyer’s perspective)

Clear video evidence — body camera or bystander footage that shows the violation unambiguously
Serious physical injury or death — high damages mean higher expected recovery
Multiple plaintiffs — pattern cases or class actions offer efficiency of scale
Departments with prior findings — DOJ consent decrees or documented patterns make Monell claims stronger
QI is clearly overcome — the officer’s conduct closely matches existing circuit precedent establishing clearly established law
Media attention — public pressure creates settlement incentive the city can’t ignore

What makes lawyers say no (even when they believe you)

Brief detention, no physical injury — “you were arrested for 3 hours and released” is a constitutional violation with minimal damages
First Amendment retaliation without tangible consequences — you were threatened or intimidated but nothing “happened”
Novel facts — the officer’s conduct doesn’t match existing case law closely enough, which means qualified immunity is likely
Small municipality with no insurance — even if you win, you can’t collect
Primarily emotional or dignitary harm — real harm, but hard to quantify in a way that moves juries
Plaintiff credibility concerns — prior criminal history, inconsistent statements, anything the defense can use to make the trial about you instead of the officer

None of these necessarily mean your rights weren’t violated. They mean the system doesn’t offer a remedy for minor violations — and that’s by design.

The government writes the rules. If minor constitutional violations could routinely proceed to trial, there would be a massive influx of cases — and the government would be paying for all of them. So the system is built to filter those cases out: qualified immunity raises the bar, Iqbal raises the pleading standard, and the damages math makes it economically impossible for lawyers to take the risk.

The practical result? Officers know the situation. As long as you don’t inflict serious physical injury or death, there are essentially no consequences for violating someone’s constitutional rights. A wrongful arrest that lasts a few hours? An illegal search that turns up nothing? Retaliation for filming that doesn’t leave bruises? Those violations are real. They happen every day. And they almost never survive the system designed to prevent accountability for them.

Minor damages don’t typically survive — not because the law says they shouldn’t matter, but because the economics make them impossible to litigate and the doctrine makes them impossible to win.

What this means for you

It’s not personal — it’s math

The lawyer who said no probably believes you. They may even be angry on your behalf. But they can’t afford to work for free for three years on a case that might pay nothing. They have rent, staff, overhead, and other clients whose cases have better odds of keeping the lights on.

The system is designed to make enforcement of constitutional rights economically irrational for most cases. That’s not your lawyer’s fault. It’s the system’s.

Your options

Go pro se. Represent yourself. It’s brutally hard, and the odds are long, but you have a constitutional right to access the courts. That’s what section1983.org is for — a free guide to holding police accountable in federal court, so you don’t start from zero.

Legal aid and law school clinics. Limited capacity, but they take cases that private attorneys won’t because they’re not driven by the same economic calculation. Search the Legal Services Corporation directory.

Civil liberties organizations. The ACLU, the Institute for Justice, and similar organizations exist, but they have their own filter: your case has to align with their mission. They take cases that will set precedent, challenge a widespread policy, or effect systemic change — cases with broad impact beyond just you. A single wrongful arrest by a single officer in a single city? That’s not what they’re looking for. They need cases that will move the law forward for everyone, which means they’re selecting for the same kinds of cases private attorneys take: the ones with the best facts, the clearest legal questions, and the highest likelihood of creating a ruling that matters beyond the individual plaintiff. Your case probably isn’t that. Most aren’t.

Hybrid approach. Do the work yourself and hire an attorney for specific motions, trial prep, or the trial itself. Some attorneys will do limited-scope representation (sometimes called “unbundled” legal services).

The access-to-justice gap

§ 1983 exists to enforce constitutional rights. § 1988 exists to make it economically viable for lawyers to bring those cases. Together, they’re supposed to mean that when the government violates your rights, you have a meaningful remedy.

In practice, qualified immunity + Iqbal/Twombly + the damages math have gutted that promise for most cases. The result: constitutional violations that everyone agrees happened, but nobody will litigate.

And the people most likely to have their rights violated — low income, minorities, the people with the least power — are the least likely to find representation.

You don’t have to sue to make it count

Whether you find a lawyer, go pro se, or decide the legal fight isn’t worth it — don’t let what happened to you disappear.

Report your experience on policeconduct.org. Your report might be the pattern evidence that a future lawyer needs to take someone else’s case against the same officer — the case with serious injury or death where the math finally works. Your “minor” interaction could be the data point that makes the next case viable.

You review your doctor. Your mechanic. Your kid’s teacher. Police officers are the one profession with the power to take your freedom, hurt you, or kill you — and no public review system.

Don’t let that stay true.

Published by the Institute for Police Conduct, Inc. This is not legal advice. For more, see section1983.org.