This lawsuit filed by Public Advocates stemmed from early staff member Angela Glover Blackwell’s experience of being refused when she went to open a checking account at Wells Fargo bank because she did not have a credit card.  The lawsuit argued the bank policy discriminated against elderly, low-income, and black customers. Discovery in the case showed that many people were denied access to checking accounts for not having credit cards, and many of those were people of color. The lawsuit took 4 years to resolve. Although the final ruling in this case by the California Supreme Court favored the bank, the case put Wells Fargo and the banking industry as a whole in California on notice that consumers from low-income communities of color would ally with lawyers and advocates to continue to monitor and organize around injustices regarding their treatment by banks.