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