Alec Karakatsanis and Phil Telfeyan have an inside view of how the U.S. legal system works from their posts as a public defender in Washington and a trial attorney in the Justice Department’s civil rights division, respectively.

The 2008 Harvard law graduates have been troubled by some of what they’ve seen, particularly when the quest for profits influences outcomes in the criminal justice system. So the two friends are starting a nonprofit civil rights law firm, called Equal Justice Under Law.