ABOUT US
Climate for Justice is a Washington D.C.-area consulting firm that combines technical legal and human rights expertise with responsible development practices to advise community and international organizations, foundations, and policy makers on how to achieve sustainable impact in the rule of law.
We leverage a trusted and internationally diverse network of legal experts, human rights defenders, and development professionals to advise clients on building and evaluating rule of law projects and other engagements so that they are locally-driven, effective, and sustainable.
What we do
Assess the needs
Identify the inroads
Make the connections
Garner community leadership and support
Establish relevance and political economy
Research the baselines
Set the benchmarks
Design sustainable objectives and goals
Build climate, human rights, and gender-based frameworks
Align projects with national strategies
Analyze the risks
Strengthen international support
Design monitoring & evaluation frameworks
Evaluate effectiveness
Empower community voices and learning
Increase visibility
We also advise our clients on organizational strategies and development frameworks to bolster their visibility, effectiveness, and fundraising in an oftentimes crowded international development space.
Our approach
We envision a just world in which human dignity and human rights prevail.
Our mission
To empower the rights of the world’s marginalized and most vulnerable through thoughtful and responsible development.
Our approach is climate-forward
The rule of law protects communities from injustices stemming from climate change and other disasters by promoting access to justice, accountable governments, and respect for universal rights. We advise our clients by successfully building climate frameworks into their development strategies, projects, and fundraising.
Our experts are internationally diverse
We draw upon a trusted and internationally diverse network of legal and human rights experts from a variety of legal traditions. Our experts have the sensitivities, knowledge, and connections to responsibly work in challenging contexts to conduct need and risk assessments, and establish partnerships and political capital on our clients’ behalf.
We combine technical expertise with development professionalism
It is not enough to know the players and political landscapes to advise on responsible rule of law interventions. We pair our technical experts with development professionals to build our assessments, strategies, and evaluations around development frameworks, including gender and conflict sensitivities, and strategies for sustaining peace.
We are trusted
Our clients benefit from the contacts and trust our experts have in the international community to establish partnerships and support for their projects and interventions. Our clients also benefit from the network and strong relationships our development professionals have with American and European funders and international policy makers to increase the visibility of their organizations and work.
Our values are inherent in our work
We prioritize community-driven development that honors diverse legal traditions. We value inclusion and prioritize community learning and leadership. Whenever possible, we align projects and advocacy with national strategies. We only take on projects that we have the expertise and bandwidth to successfully complete. We incorporate quality assurances into all of our contracts, and our experts abide by professional and ethical codes of conduct.
Quinn O’Keefe
Founder & Managing Director
A fifteen-year veteran of the international rule of law and human rights development community, Quinn founded Climate for Justice in 2021 partly in response to the numerous requests for guidance she received on how to revamp development projects and organizational strategies amid the Covid-19 pandemic. A lawyer by training, Quinn has held executive and leadership positions with several non-profit organizations including the CEELI Institute, and the International Legal Assistance Consortium.
Quinn specializes in developing and advocating for assistance programs that protect the rights of the marginalized and most vulnerable with a special emphasis on women and girls. Much of her work has entailed improving access to justice through effective and fair institutions in fragile and post-conflict countries. She is a respected advocate in the rule of law and good governance fields and has moderated numerous public panels on anti-corruption and strategic lawyering. She often meets with officials in the U.S. and European governments and United Nations briefing them on rule of law matters that are in need of increased financial and political support. She maintains a large international network of human rights defenders and legal professionals that she has been cultivating throughout her career starting at Freedom House, the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative, and Human Rights First.
Quinn currently serves as President of the Friends of the CEELI Institute Board of Directors and is a member of the D.C. Bar. She graduated from the University of Michigan Law School and lives in Washington D.C. with her husband and Irish Setter.