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The Community & Economic Development Program uses the tools of corporate and transactional law to promote racial and economic justice across the communities of New York City.

  • We represent small businesses struggling through the economic impacts of gentrification and the pandemic, especially with commercial lease issues > Learn more 
  • We represent community groups and non-profits that need legal support to start up, grow, stay in compliance, and achieve their goals > Learn more
  • We represent worker-owned cooperatives and solidarity economy projects building more equitable ways of working and living. > Learn more
  • We represent community activists fighting for equity for their communities and building grassroots power in movements for racial and economic justice. > Learn more

We help all kinds of businesses and organizations across New York City. In particular, we aim to prioritize groups and entities that are based in and serving low-income and marginalized communities, including:

  • Movement spaces and other physical infrastructure needed by movements for racial, social and economic justice; 
  • Businesses and organizations being started by or serving people impacted by incarceration and the drug war;
  • Worker-owned cooperatives and solidarity economy projects;
  • Community-based mutual aid groups;
  • Democratically structured non-profits, like groups that identify as “worker self-directed non-profits,” “horizontal non-profits,” and organizations using forms of sociocracy for governance and decision-making;
  • Environmental justice projects and work related to food justice and land;
  • Non-profit affordable housing developers and community land trusts working toward social housing models, long-term or permanent affordability, and resident control; 
  • Organizations fighting to protect the physical safety of immigrants, LGBTQ+ communities, people of color, Jewish, Muslim, and other threatened religious communities, and other communities threatened by violence; and
  • Other organizations and projects that grow out of movements for racial and economic justice.

Our Goals

  • Advance economic justice within historically marginalized communities.
  • Promote equitable economic development by providing legal services to nonprofits with programs promoting these goals and providing preventive solutions to reducing poverty.

Legal Work

Brooklyn A’s CED attorneys, as in-house and special project counsel, offer nonprofit clients ongoing, long-term representation that encompasses the full range of services that private sector corporations routinely receive from their corporate counsel. The transactional legal services we provide include:

  • Real estate, including pre-development coordination and title and finance closings
  • The drafting and negotiation of contracts
  • Regulatory representation and negotiations with governmental authorities
  • Advice and council with regard to public and private financing
  • Corporate and tax advice
  • Environmentally sustainable development
  • Employee relations
  • Corporate formation, including incorporation, obtaining tax-exempt status and organizational structuring
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