Two young lawyers created a party game with questions about basic legal rights
The monotony and loneliness of studying for the bar exam inspired Joseph Kemp to create a card game focused on legal issues.
Kemp, a 2022 University of Michigan Law School graduate, was joined in the endeavor by his longtime friend Latoya Bethune, a 2020 Vanderbilt Law School graduate.
Together, they founded Games That Matter. Their first offering is called Disbarred: The Card Game, which teaches players core legal principles through interactive prompts.The game includes roughly 160 cards with questions covering a wide variety of legal concepts.
For example, one reads, “Why can Kim K. practice law without going to law school?” Answer the query correctly, and you get the card. At the end of the game, the player with the most cards wins the match and the title of “legal scholar.” The person with the fewest cards is “disbarred.”
“It’s not going to be too in the weeds of law, but it’s going to be the high-level things that everyone should know. You can think of it as a family-friendly Cards Against Humanity with a legal twist.”
Kemp is currently focused on running Games That Matter, and Bethune is a corporate lawyer. Both are based in New York City. They hope players gain a greater understanding of basic legal concepts while having fun with their friends. And the pair plans to donate about 5% of their profits to aspiring lawyers who face economic challenges.
Joseph Kemp (Photo courtesy of Joseph Kemp) “This component was really important for us,” says Bethune, who also hopes their game will give students without family in the legal world a greater understanding of the profession.
A successful $10,000 Kickstarter campaign helped fund development costs. The game can be preordered at disbarredthegame.com and costs $39.99, with delivery expected by the end of 2025.
Other offerings from the company already are being planned.
“This part is our spinoff in terms of law, but we have goals under Games That Matter to have it spread to medical, tax or just any other type of field that we feel people could benefit from learning more about in a practical and approachable way,” Bethune says.
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