“In 1999, Maria Karagianis was hired by the Boston Bar Foundation under the auspices of the federal judiciary to give birth to an idea long valued by many judges and lawyers including Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who had been a federal judge in Boston before being nominated for the high court.  That idea  — more important now than ever 20 years later — was to use the new federal courthouse in Boston — with its beautiful brick architecture and sprawling acre of  curving glass over-looking Boston Harbor, as a classroom with lawyers and judges as teachers to inculcate adults and children — many of them from the inner city — about democracy, civics and justice. Having lived in a police state — in apartheid South Africa as a young reporter — Karagianis was highly motivated and became, as she likes to say, an “accidental social entrepreneur.”  Starting with no name, mission, vision, programs, employees and around $50,000 a year for three years, Discovering Justice (it had originally been called the Federal Court Public Education Project of the Boston Bar Foundation when Karagianis was hired), was eight years later when she left, a nationally recognized civic education program with a $1.8 million a year budget, a $2 million endowment, 15 employees, hundreds of volunteers and nationally recognized programs including mock trials, a curriculum called Children Discovering Justice then taught to about 20,000 children a year; plays about events in American Constitutional history using courtrooms as theaters and a docent program to bring thousands of citizens into the courthouse annually.”“I guess I got carried away,” Karagianis has said.  Since that time, the organization has thrived and Karagianis now has become a true believer in entrepreneurship — both in entrepreneurial non-profits and in socially conscious businesses. Selectively, she thrives as a consultant advising both types of groups, using many of her experiences, successes and — most of all — failures in creating Discovering Justice as a template.”