Career tips from the inspirational woman transforming the legal system

As part of our Future Shapers series, in partnership with Neutrogena, we've scoured the country to find 2016's hot new innovators...

The legal mastermind: Julia Salasky, 34

Salasky is the CEO and founder of CrowdJustice, a crowdfunding platform that provides financial support to empower people to fight

Access to legal support should be a right, not a luxury. Too often, using the law is seen as scary and unaffordable, so people feel powerless about defending their human rights. Our aim is to break down those barriers, giving everyone –from domestic violence and rape survivors to environmental activists – access to legal support to help them fight for justice.

Disrupting the legal system had never been done before. [Founding CrowdJustice] brought about never-ending challenges. But if you can create something completely new that will genuinely change lives – that’s success.

There’s no safety net. I left my job as a lawyer at the UN to focus on CrowdJustice, with no guarantees. But it’s only by taking risks and leaving comfortable environments that you can bring about incremental change and help to shape the future.

Push doors until they open. I met every person in the law industry, tapped up every connection who could possibly help, and put my foot in every door. I wouldn’t even call it networking so much as bashing my head against a wall until someone would talk to me.

Proving people wrong is a good goal to have. When we launched, there was a national news article about us, saying that it was an admirable idea but it would never work. I’ve learnt to treat criticism as a lever to success rather than getting worn down by it. This year I was nominated for Legal Personality of the Year.

#passiton ‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get. We’d never have got this far if I’d listened to the doubters.’

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