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2025 | Winter Issue

Freedom to Give

When Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in 1831, he was astonished by the culture of voluntary giving and community. Do Americans still have the freedom to help each other?

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featured articles

Feeding the Homeless

Brittany Hunter, Editorial Writer

On a gray afternoon at the train station in Newark, New Jersey, a dozen homeless men and women were panhandling when a large man entered the station without any luggage.

Alabama Family Punished for Conservation Efforts

Charles Yates, Attorney

It was the listing that spooked Gray Skipper’s family. If a threatened species is allegedly sighted on your property, it’s game over: You lose the legal ability to use your land the way you want.

Nurse Forced to Pay $50,000 State Fee 

Donna Matias, Attorney

It is a special kind of science: the science of helping someone get well. Some doctors approach it with a sniper’s precision, zeroing in quickly on the problem that needs solving. (In the television show House, a running gag is that Dr. House prefers not to spend time with patients; he diagnoses them from a […]

Criminalizing Joy: The Dolphin Therapists of Hawaii 

Christian Schneider, Op-ed Editor

Eliza Wille used to start her therapy sessions by inviting her patients to wade into the crystalline waters off Kona, Hawaii. The ocean was her office. Her co-therapists were spinner dolphins — empathetic, curious, and, apparently, a threat to the republic.  For years, Wille helped people struggling with addiction and depression by using dolphin encounters […]

Can New York City Force Homeowners to Sponsor Art? 

Chris Kieser, Senior Attorney

Before artists moved into SoHo, the neighborhood was known as “hell’s hundred acres,” says photographer David Lawrence. “It was full of warehouses and flop houses and bordellos. And no one wanted to come here at night.”   This was back in the 1950s and ’60s, after manufacturers abandoned New York City and left behind a graveyard […]

The Storyteller’s Role 

Nicole W.C. Yeatman, Editorial Director

By the time I met Annette Hubbell in person at her sun-dappled home in a San Diego suburb, I’d already watched her on stage: She shared videos from a past performance of her one-woman play, “Women Warriors.” In a series of period costumes—a lace shawl for Elizabeth Fry, the British prison reformer; a deep-purple jacket […]

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Stories of liberty and justice

Sword&Scales is a quarterly magazine with in-depth stories about liberty, equality, and justice. Published by Pacific Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm with a winning record at the Supreme Court, Sword&Scales features narratives from history, courtroom showdowns, and the real experiences of people fighting for their rights.

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