Discovering Justice was founded in 1998 with the support of the federal judiciary at Boston’s John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse and the Boston Bar Foundation. The founding goal of the organization was to educate the public about the role of the justice system in American democracy, and specifically to turn the Moakley Courthouse into a center of community and civic activity. A few years ago, at the invitation of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Discovering Justice expanded to the John Adams Courthouse.  

In 1999, Discovering Justice's first public education program featured a courtroom performance of Sojourner Truth, a one-woman play about the former slave who became an abolitionist and feminist. Following the performance, the late U.S. District Court Judge Reginald Lindsay, an African-American who grew up in the Jim Crow South, spoke with the students about being a young boy at a time when black children and white children were forbidden to play together. Judge Lindsay drew parallels for the audience between what they had just seen in the play and the history of federal law and civil rights.  

In 2001, the Project was named in honor of Boston litigator James D. St.Clair and incorporated as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with its main headquarters in the John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse.
 
Discovering Justice now offers civic education through two linked tracks of interactive programming: innovative school-based curricula and unique courthouse-based experiences.  Several programs have both a school-based and courthouse-based component.  For more information, please see Our Programs.