Courts can better protect rights when citizens are willing and able to litigate in response to government abuses of power. However, if people are not socialized to the possibility of litigating against governments, how does the idea to litigate first occur? Using an original survey of victims in the Moscow theater hostage incident, we find that judicial pioneers are motivated by political disadvantage, defined as their perception that they are not well represented by political institutions. The effect of political disadvantage on litigation is intensified by the perception that courts too are not fair, suggesting that general alienation from the political system plays an important role in the pioneering decision to litigate.