One woman’s plan to reform a bail system that disadvantages poor defendants

It was over a late-night Chinese meal in New York with her then colleague, now husband, that Robin Steinberg first hit on the idea for a bail fund.

Ms. Steinberg and David Feige were both public defenders in the Bronx, a borough of New York, where they saw every day how cash bail hampered clients who couldn’t afford to pay to get out of detention.

“We were venting about some client who had just pled guilty [to avoid being stuck in jail] and how frustrating it was and how outrageous it was. And he said, ‘You should just start a bail fund and start bailing people out of jail,’ ” Steinberg says.

Bail was instituted as a way to ensure that a defendant returns to court – to retrieve the money he or she posted. But too often it

‘From the ground up’ approachOne bail recipientThree other groups taking up human rights