Who Do We Work With?
The Orange Hats work with groups and individuals who are working to create progressive social change and who operate under basic anti-racist and anti-oppression principles.
New to Organizing or Working with Us?
There are a few factors to consider before you make a request for legal support for an action or demonstration:
- Step up your information security.
- Develop a realistic idea of what’s needed at an action.
- Consider getting training.
Step up your information security
Whether you’re communicating with your fellow organizers or third-party support teams (like Legal Observers), it’s always wise to be thoughtful of what is being said, to whom, and who might read those communications later.
Never share more information than absolutely necessary, especially through unencrypted channels.
As Orange Hats, we don’t need to know the entire plan. Please do not put it in the form, even if you think it is a low-risk, well-publicized, common type of action. We prefer to communicate via Signal, so consider leaving a Signal ID (which you can change later without losing contact with your network) as the channel for touching base if we need more information.
Develop a realistic idea of what’s needed at an action
We highly recommend attending a few actions to see how different groups organize, and what other factors come into play. Watch how the police line up and interact with each other, and the crowd.
Walk through the space where your action is taking place, with an eye towards potential areas of congestion and conflict, well in advance, if possible.
Commit to getting all attendees home safely. An action isn’t truly over until everyone is on their way home safely. Have a plan in mind for what happens should something go sideways. Always have an idea of which community members can be tapped to do Jail Support, while knowing that nine times out of ten, it isn’t needed.
Consider getting training
Among our upcoming training sessions, we have:
Know Your Rights, usually for community members who attend protests;
Legal Observer training, which we recommend for activists (especially organizers), even if they never come out in an orange hat, because knowing what to look for is always helpful;
Common Protest Site Walk-throughs, where we discuss the layout and potential areas of concern based on our experience.
If you are interested in our upcoming training sessions, email us at orangehats [at] fastmail.com or bookmark our site for when our new training page goes live.
Ready to book legal support for your upcoming action?
Click here to fill out the form – and remember: only put in enough information to let us know what’s needed from us.