The D.A.S. Team
The Defendant Aid Society is led by a small Board of Directors and run, day to day, by volunteers who believe no one should face the government alone.
Governance
DAS is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, organized in Utah and overseen by a Board of Directors. Three of our directors are attorneys with deep legal, academic, and political experience; the fourth, a non-attorney Executive Director, runs day-to-day operations. Behind them stands a national network of affiliated attorneys and citizen volunteers who handle inmate support, court contacts, filings, paralegal work, and more.
Board of Directors
Jewel founded the Defendant Aid Society in 2019, drawing on a lifetime in the American freedom movement. The granddaughter of Dr. W. Cleon Skousen, she was mentored from a young age by leaders such as Elder Hartman Rector Jr., her parents Dr. Glenn and Julianne Kimber, and others — and has been organizing civic and community outreach since she was seventeen, when she founded Youth of America to teach young people about citizenship.
A former corporate executive and entrepreneur, Jewel is an educator at heart: she developed curriculum, trained faculty and parents, and authored the Kimber Reading Program. She helped build the Free Capitalist Project to 22,000 members and its daily radio program to a peak of one million listeners. A lifelong student of American patriotism and family, she served as a county and state political delegate and ran for the Utah House of Representatives in 2012.
Jewel lives in Grouse Creek, Utah. She is a devoted wife to Rick, mother of eight, grandmother of seven, and serves regularly in her local congregation.
Russ is an active attorney and well-known Utah community leader whose career spans law, government, and public service. He served as policy director for Governor Jon Huntsman Jr.’s first campaign and as Executive Director of the Utah Department of Commerce, and in 2000 was elected Salt Lake County’s first County Councilman from District 4.
He earned his B.A. in Political Science (cum laude) and his J.D. (cum laude) from BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School, where he was Executive Editor of the Journal of Public Law and won the Founding Fathers Freedom Award. Over three decades in practice he has worked across commercial litigation, business, real estate, constitutional, and government law, and is today the managing partner at Skousen Law, PLLC. He and his wife, Debbie, live in Highland, Utah, and are the parents of four.
Morgan is an active attorney, former elected official, and longtime civil-liberties advocate. He served as lead attorney in the Malheur Refuge occupation trial (co-counsel with Marcus Mumford for Ammon Bundy), contributed to the Bundy defense in Nevada, brought the LaVoy Finicum wrongful-death suit, and argued the Count My Vote case before the Utah Supreme Court.
Before law, Morgan served as a Utah State Representative (2000 and 2002) and Vice-Chair of the Utah Republican Party, earning recognition as a Friend of the Taxpayer and a Guardian of Small Business. He previously worked in the Utah Attorney General’s office, served as a White House intern, and clerked for Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. He counts fatherhood among his greatest accomplishments and lives with his family in Utah.
Paul brings an international and academic depth to the board. He graduated magna cum laude from BYU (Honors History, 1992), studied at the University of Bern, and earned his J.D. from Columbia Law School as a Fulbright Fellow and Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.
Admitted to practice in New York and Utah — as well as the U.S. Tax Court, the Court of Federal Claims, and the Federal District Court for Utah — Paul previously practiced at Kirton & McConkie. His work centers on tax, corporate and partnership matters, international trade and taxation, foreign investment, global migration, estate planning, and alternative dispute resolution.
In Memoriam
Marcus was instrumental in the founding of DAS. He represented Jewel’s husband, Rick, from 2009 through 2016, and through that long fight the Mumfords and the Franklins became close friends. It was Marcus whom Rick brought on as co-counsel with Morgan Philpot for Ammon Bundy in the Malheur Refuge case, and Marcus and Jewel who assembled Rick’s appellate team in 2019. During visits to discuss that appeal, they found themselves sketching the idea that would become the Defendant Aid Society.
A graduate of BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School, Marcus clerked for federal appellate judge Monroe G. McKay and spent eight years as a litigator at Skadden, Arps before returning to Utah and his own practice. He was a uniquely passionate and fearless advocate for defendants — once called a modern-day Atticus Finch — with a remarkable record in high-stakes criminal trials. His motto in the face of overwhelming federal power was simple:
“Hit hard — good things will happen.”
To be an effective criminal defense counsel, an attorney must be prepared to be demanding, outrageous, irreverent, blasphemous, a rogue, a renegade — few love a spokesman for the despised and the damned. Clarence Darrow, Trial Attorney (1857–1938)
Marcus knew the deeper truth: that fighting for those whose freedom is on the line is among the most noble of human causes. He died, suddenly and far too soon, in April 2020 — in the middle of the fight. We carry his example into every case we take.
Meet the DAS Support Team
With more than a hundred people in our care at any time, we have embraced leading-edge tools — responsibly — so our small team can reach everyone who needs us. Meet the two members of our team who are, quite literally, part person and part technology.
Alissa is usually the first to greet you. She can answer common questions any time of day, help you understand your options, and make sure your request reaches the right person. When something matters, a real volunteer steps in behind her name.
Abraham keeps your case moving. He tracks where things stand, sets expectations for what comes next, and handles day-to-day updates — always with a real human volunteer reviewing and responsible for anything that affects your case.
Alissa and Abraham are not single people — and they are not just software. Each is a shared role operated by trained AI for first-touch help and routine communication, and by real, dedicated DAS volunteers for everything that matters. The AI helps us answer quickly and stay organized around the clock; the human makes every decision that affects a person’s case. No legal work is ever automated. Behind every meaningful interaction is a real person who cares about you.
You may wonder why our team members use names like these instead of their own. The answer is simple and important: safety. Our volunteers give their time to help people they have never met, often in difficult circumstances. Working behind shared, protective names lets them serve openly and generously without exposing themselves or their families to risk. It is a practice we disclose plainly — in every email and here on our site — because honesty matters to us.
Our Network
Most of the work of DAS is done by volunteers — affiliated attorneys, paralegals, and citizens who give their time to inmate support, court filings, research, media outreach, and back-office help. If you are an attorney interested in working or volunteering with us, or you’d like to refer one, we’d love to hear from you.
Whether you need help or want to help, there is a place for you in this work.
