Across the 70-year history of the Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, the presenters and discussants have focused on a wide spectrum of motivational concerns, broadly construed, but in recent years the symposium has not directly considered motivation as a psychological process in its own right. The proceedings of the 2024 symposium examined motivation more directly as a psychological process implicated in the pursuit of building a just society. The symposium brought together a group of psychological and legal scholars working in the arena of motivation and justice with the starting premise that we currently possess a great deal of knowledge about the psychology of the legal system including the way in which the behavior of legislatures, judges, jurors, attorneys, litigants, and defendants shapes the outcome of justice seeking. At the same time, it has become clear that a main obstacle to making use of our knowledge is the lack of motivation to use evidence-based decision making to make the needed changes in legal and political processes. The papers that make up this year’s symposium examined the antecedents of the motivation for justice, described how that motivation activates and manifests in various legal institutions (i.e., elections, legislatures, courts, and executive offices), and explored ways to remedy what appears to be a failure of existing incentives to achieve justice. These concerns are paramount at the current time in our history in view of the increase in tribal impulses and the decline of societal trust in democratic institutions and processes.