Team

Jeremy Zullo co-founded Pro Se Help after teaching himself federal law in a prison law library, because his own freedom depended on it. He is not a lawyer. What he knows about compassionate release, the First Step Act, and filing pro se, he learned by doing it himself.

Jeremy brought the pro se motion behind the Second Circuit's decision in United States v. Brooker, 976 F.3d 228 (2d Cir. 2020), a case that helped shape how courts handle compassionate release. The court held that the old Sentencing Commission policy statement did not limit the reasons a person filing their own motion could raise. The First Step Act had changed the law to let defendants file these motions themselves, and Brooker was one of the first appeals court decisions to say what that change meant.

The Brooker decision has been cited in thousands of cases across the country. It came out of years of research Jeremy did in the prison law library, teaching himself the law after his own lawyer told the court she could not find an issue worth raising.

Today Jeremy researches and writes the guides, free tools, and articles Pro Se Help publishes, so families can understand the process in plain language before they decide what to do next. He is the author of Your Freedom Within Reach. Pro Se Help is not a law firm, and Jeremy does not give legal advice or represent anyone. What he shares is what he learned, organized so the next person does not have to start from zero.