An Overview of the Ballot Initiative
Uber is backing a proposed California ballot initiative titled the “Protecting Automobile Accident Victims from Attorney Self-Dealing Act.” Despite its name, consumer advocates and legal scholars warn that the measure would do the opposite of what it claims.
If passed, the initiative would amend the California Constitution to fundamentally change how auto-accident injury cases are handled. Among other things, it would:
- Cap attorney fees and litigation costs at 25% of any recovery
- Limit what injured people can recover for medical care by tying compensation to government or insurance reimbursement rates rather than real-world treatment costs
- Undermine lien-based medical treatment, making it harder for uninsured or underinsured victims to receive care
- Leave corporate defendants and insurers unrestricted, with no caps on what they can spend on defense lawyers, experts, or delay tactics
While the initiative is marketed as “protecting victims,” its practical effect would be to make many legitimate injury cases financially impossible to pursue, especially for working-class Californians who rely on contingency-fee representation.
Why This Matters for Injured Californians
For most people injured in a serious car accident, access to justice depends on three things working together:
- A viable contingency-fee system that allows attorneys to take cases without upfront payment
- Access to medical care, often provided on a lien when patients can’t pay out of pocket
- A balanced legal playing field, where individuals can challenge powerful defendants
This initiative undermines all three.
By forcing attorney fees and case costs into a narrow cap, regardless of case complexity, it discourages lawyers from taking legitimate but resource-intensive cases. By slashing recoverable medical costs, it limits care options and shifts financial burden onto injured people. And by placing no limits on corporate defense spending, it entrenches an already unequal system.
The result is a two-tier justice system: one for those who can afford hourly legal fees, and another for everyone else.
What Supio Is Doing
Supio has donated $100,000 to support the opposition effort led by the Consumer Attorneys of California (CAOC) and the Alliance Against Corporate Abuse.
They are working to:
- Educate voters about the real impact of the initiative
- Defend access to legal representation and medical care
- Preserve fairness and transparency in California’s civil justice system
Our contribution is intended to support that work and ensure that the voices of injured people, and those who represent them, are not drowned out by corporate spending.
If you care about preserving access to justice and protecting the civil legal system for everyday Californians, you can support this effort directly by donating here.
Why This Aligns With Supio’s Mission
Supio exists to help people access justice by empowering the attorneys who represent them.
Everything we build assumes:
- That injured people deserve strong, well-resourced advocacy
- That lawyers should be able to take on complex cases without financial impossibility
- That technology should help level the playing field, not reinforce existing power imbalances
We work every day with firms that invest enormous time, expertise, and capital into representing clients who would otherwise have no path forward. A legal system that quietly restricts those firms’ ability to operate doesn’t protect consumers; it limits their options.
Supporting access to justice isn’t separate from our business. It’s foundational to it.
Not About Politics. About Principles.
This is not a partisan statement. It’s a values-driven one.
Regardless of how the initiative is branded, Supio believes Californians deserve transparency about measures that reshape constitutional rights and access to the courts. We believe injured people should not bear the cost of reforms designed to reduce corporate liability. And we believe fairness requires that any limits imposed on individuals apply equally to powerful defendants.
Technology can move the legal system forward, but only if the system itself remains accessible.
Standing With the Community We Serve
We’re sharing this openly with customers, partners, and the broader legal community because we believe these conversations matter.
Supio is proud to stand with the attorneys, advocates, and organizations working to defend access to justice in California, and to invest meaningfully in that effort.
As this initiative moves forward, we’ll continue to support transparency, education, and the principles that brought us into this space in the first place.