The UCLA Law COVID Behind Bars Data Project: Doing Social Justice Work from Inside a Law School

Part I of this Essay tells the origin story of the UCLA Law COVID Behind Bars Data Project. Part II addresses the question of how an effort like this, focused on data and policy, could have arisen in a law school, and what our experience reveals about the role the legal academy and legal scholarship can play in the movement for social justice and policy change. Part III highlights some of the organizational factors that enabled us to do what we did despite significant time and resource constraints. The focus here is on the process of institution-building and lessons learned. Finally, Part IV briefly describes the denouement of our COVID data collection efforts and our decision to pivot to our currentfocus on national, all-cause carceral mortality.