ABOUT
About SHIELD Legal
Students Helping Inform, Educate, Learn, and Defend. A student-led platform dedicated to making legal knowledge accessible to everyone.
OUR MISSION
Our Mission
Legal literacy is one of the most consequential gaps in American civic education. Every person, regardless of income, background, or circumstance, interacts with the legal system throughout their life. They sign contracts, face evictions, encounter police, navigate employment disputes, and engage with government institutions that have enormous power over their daily existence. Yet the vast majority of Americans receive no formal instruction in how any of these systems work or what rights they have within them.
SHIELD Legal exists to change that. We believe that legal knowledge is a public good. Something that should be freely available and genuinely accessible to every person who wants it, not locked behind expensive legal consultations or written in language only specialists can understand. Our mission is to advance legal literacy, civic education, and public understanding of the law, one community at a time.
We are not a law firm. We do not provide legal advice. What we provide is something different, and in many ways more foundational: the legal education that helps people understand when they have a problem, what their rights are, and when to seek help. We believe that informed communities are stronger communities. Access to legal knowledge is, ultimately, a civil rights issue.
WHAT WE DO
What We Do
Legal Education
Creating accessible explainers, guides, and reference materials that translate complex legal language into plain English. Free for anyone who wants to learn.
Community Outreach
Bringing legal literacy to high schools, community organizations, and underserved populations who need legal knowledge the most but have the least access to it.
Research
Collaborating with law school faculty and legal scholars to ensure every piece of content we publish is accurate, well-sourced, and reflects current law.
Public Writing
Publishing analysis and commentary on legal topics affecting everyday people: access to justice, civil rights, constitutional law, and the places where law meets daily life.
WHO WE SERVE
Who We Serve
SHIELD Legal is built for anyone who wants to understand the law that affects their life. Our content is designed to be accessible regardless of educational background or prior legal knowledge.
THE TEAM
Our Founders
Saurish Gottipati
Co-Founder · South Forsyth High School, Cumming, GA
Saurish is a junior at South Forsyth High School in Cumming, Georgia. He is an active researcher in both law and business, conducting work across top 25 law schools and business institutions in the United States.
His scholarship sits at the intersection of legal theory, empirical research, and civic education. With a background that bridges academic legal research and evidence-based methodologies, he brings a rigorous analytical approach to questions about how the law is written, interpreted, and understood by the people it affects most.
At SHIELD Legal, Saurish leads content development around constitutional law, criminal procedure, legal literacy, and the access-to-justice gap.
Armaan Keswani
Co-Founder · Denmark High School, Alpharetta, GA
Armaan is a junior at Denmark High School in Alpharetta, Georgia. He is an active researcher in law, business, and financial technology, conducting work across top law schools and business institutions in the United States.
His scholarship focuses on the economic barriers that shape who can access the legal system and what that costs the communities who need it most. With a background spanning legal research and the financial technology industry, he brings a practical understanding of how money, policy, and law intersect in the real world.
At SHIELD Legal, Armaan leads content development around housing law, employment rights, consumer protection, and legal finance topics.
ADVISORS
Faculty & Advisors
SHIELD Legal works with faculty advisors at multiple universities to ensure the accuracy and quality of our legal education content. Our research collaborations span the University of Georgia School of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Southern California, and the UGA Terry College of Business. Full advisor profiles and acknowledgments are coming soon.
EXPERT PERSPECTIVES
Voices from the Field
SHIELD Legal reaches out to legal scholars, professors, and practitioners to bring students firsthand insight from people who have spent their careers studying the law.
Carl Hernandez
Professor of Law · BYU J. Reuben Clark Law School
What legal issues do young people most commonly get wrong?
Students should start with the basics of the United States Constitution. Understanding federalism and how power is divided between federal and state governments gives you a foundation for everything else. From there, the Bill of Rights becomes much easier to understand. The First Amendment protects free speech and expression. The Fourth Amendment protects you from unlawful searches. The Fifth Amendment guarantees due process. The Fourteenth Amendment ensures equal protection. These are not abstract ideas. They apply directly to students in schools every day.
How can students tell if a legal source is trustworthy?
Go to primary sources. That means the actual text of the U.S. Constitution, state constitutions, federal and state laws, and court decisions that interpret those laws. Local ordinances count too. Law treatises written by legal scholars are also solid resources. If a source is not pointing back to one of these, treat it with skepticism.
What is one thing you wish more students understood about the legal system?
How our constitutional system actually works. Power in this country is divided both horizontally across federal, state, and local governments, and vertically across the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Students need to understand not just their rights but their responsibility to uphold the rule of law by participating in government and holding leaders accountable.
ETHICS & DISCLAIMER
Our Commitment to Accuracy and Ethics
SHIELD Legal is dedicated to providing accurate, up-to-date legal education. However, legal information changes over time and varies by jurisdiction. Nothing on this platform constitutes legal advice. For advice on your specific legal situation, please consult a licensed attorney in your state. SHIELD Legal does not create an attorney-client relationship with any user. Our content is reviewed with care, but users should always verify current law with a qualified professional before acting on any legal information.