Legal Cafe Dates and Locations

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Please find all the dates and locations of the Law Center's Resilient Communities Legal Cafes and Teach-ins below. You can also view all of our events, including workshops, trainings, Happy Hours, and more on SELC's events page by clicking here. We look forward to seeing you at a future Law Center event where we provide not only resources but create the community relationships that will build the new economy!

  • Wednesday, April 23, 2025 at 12:00 PM PDT
    Online via Zoom in Oakland, CA

    Online Legal Cafe

    The Sustainable Economies Law Center provides direct legal support to individuals and groups who are working to create new solutions for resilient local economies. The Resilient Communities Legal Cafe provides sliding-scale donation-based legal advice, via Zoom, by appointment. 

    If you need advice about starting a worker-owned cooperative, converting an existing business into a cooperative, organizing a housing cooperative, founding a nonprofit or other social enterprise, please RSVP below! Here are some questions we will be prepared to answer:

    ❖ Radical real estate law: How to form a housing cooperative, real estate cooperative, or nonprofit housing? 
    ❖ Legal formation for small businesses: What are the regulations and requirements to have your organization legally function?
     Legal entity choice: Should your org be a for profit, non-profit, and which legal entity fits best with your vision?
     Employment law: Whether you're an employer, employee, or a cooperative, we can answer questions on how to prevent or resolve issues?
     Tax law: What are the ways to receive tax exemption for your org?
     Contracts: Contract review, drafting, and negotiation
     Liability issues: What are your governance requirements to avoid liability?
     Environmental law: Do you have questions about how to create more green spaces for your community?
    ❖ Worker Self Directed Nonprofits:  How can you run your nonprofit organization more like a worker-owned cooperative?

    Note: We especially encourage Black, Indigenous, people of color, and low-income communities to RSVP. We focus on cooperatives, participatory or democratic nonprofits, land trusts, and mutual aid groups. If you need Spanish Language or American Sign Language interpretation, please email Hope ([email protected]) with Subject Line "Interpretation Request - for [mm/dd/yyyy] event." We will do our best to accommodate your request.

    Keep an eye out for an e-mail when you RSVP. The e-mail will have your appointment slot, instructions on how to attend our Legal Cafe remotely, and an intake form that we need you and your partners to fill out. 

    Format: You and/or your group will be paired with a lawyer for 30-45 minutes to get answers to questions about entity formation, contracts, governance, and more! Since we're based in Oakland, our event times are listed as Pacific Standard Time.

    Got any questions? E-mail [email protected]!

     

    Only one person per group needs to RSVP.

  • Tuesday, April 29, 2025 at 12:00 PM PDT
    Online via Zoom in Oakland, CA

    Online Legal Cafe

    The Sustainable Economies Law Center provides direct legal support to individuals and groups who are working to create new solutions for resilient local economies. The Resilient Communities Legal Cafe provides sliding-scale donation-based legal advice, via Zoom, by appointment. 

    If you need advice about starting a worker-owned cooperative, converting an existing business into a cooperative, organizing a housing cooperative, founding a nonprofit or other social enterprise, please RSVP below! Here are some questions we will be prepared to answer:

    ❖ Radical real estate law: How to form a housing cooperative, real estate cooperative, or nonprofit housing? 
    ❖ Legal formation for small businesses: What are the regulations and requirements to have your organization legally function?
     Legal entity choice: Should your org be a for profit, non-profit, and which legal entity fits best with your vision?
     Employment law: Whether you're an employer, employee, or a cooperative, we can answer questions on how to prevent or resolve issues?
     Tax law: What are the ways to receive tax exemption for your org?
     Contracts: Contract review, drafting, and negotiation
     Liability issues: What are your governance requirements to avoid liability?
     Environmental law: Do you have questions about how to create more green spaces for your community?
    ❖ Worker Self Directed Nonprofits:  How can you run your nonprofit organization more like a worker-owned cooperative?

    Note: We especially encourage Black, Indigenous, people of color, and low-income communities to RSVP. We focus on cooperatives, participatory or democratic nonprofits, land trusts, and mutual aid groups. If you need Spanish Language or American Sign Language interpretation, please email Hope ([email protected]) with Subject Line "Interpretation Request - for [mm/dd/yyyy] event." We will do our best to accommodate your request.

    Keep an eye out for an e-mail when you RSVP. The e-mail will have your appointment slot, instructions on how to attend our Legal Cafe remotely, and an intake form that we need you and your partners to fill out. 

    Format: You and/or your group will be paired with a lawyer for 30-45 minutes to get answers to questions about entity formation, contracts, governance, and more! Since we're based in Oakland, our event times are listed as Pacific Standard Time.

    Got any questions? E-mail [email protected]!

     

    Only one person per group needs to RSVP.

  • Wednesday, May 07, 2025 at 12:00 PM PDT
    Online via Zoom in Oakland, CA

    Online Legal Cafe

    The Sustainable Economies Law Center provides direct legal support to individuals and groups who are working to create new solutions for resilient local economies. The Resilient Communities Legal Cafe provides sliding-scale donation-based legal advice, via Zoom, by appointment. 

    If you need advice about starting a worker-owned cooperative, converting an existing business into a cooperative, organizing a housing cooperative, founding a nonprofit or other social enterprise, please RSVP below! Here are some questions we will be prepared to answer:

    ❖ Radical real estate law: How to form a housing cooperative, real estate cooperative, or nonprofit housing? 
    ❖ Legal formation for small businesses: What are the regulations and requirements to have your organization legally function?
     Legal entity choice: Should your org be a for profit, non-profit, and which legal entity fits best with your vision?
     Employment law: Whether you're an employer, employee, or a cooperative, we can answer questions on how to prevent or resolve issues?
     Tax law: What are the ways to receive tax exemption for your org?
     Contracts: Contract review, drafting, and negotiation
     Liability issues: What are your governance requirements to avoid liability?
     Environmental law: Do you have questions about how to create more green spaces for your community?
    ❖ Worker Self Directed Nonprofits:  How can you run your nonprofit organization more like a worker-owned cooperative?

    Note: We especially encourage Black, Indigenous, people of color, and low-income communities to RSVP. We focus on cooperatives, participatory or democratic nonprofits, land trusts, and mutual aid groups. If you need Spanish Language or American Sign Language interpretation, please email Hope ([email protected]) with Subject Line "Interpretation Request - for [mm/dd/yyyy] event." We will do our best to accommodate your request.

    Keep an eye out for an e-mail when you RSVP. The e-mail will have your appointment slot, instructions on how to attend our Legal Cafe remotely, and an intake form that we need you and your partners to fill out. 

    Format: You and/or your group will be paired with a lawyer for 30-45 minutes to get answers to questions about entity formation, contracts, governance, and more! Since we're based in Oakland, our event times are listed as Pacific Standard Time.

    Got any questions? E-mail [email protected]!

     

    Only one person per group needs to RSVP.

  • Tuesday, June 03, 2025 at 10:00 AM PDT · $25.00 USD · 1 rsvp
    Zoom Webinar

    Wealth Redistribution and the Law

    Event Banner: Wealth Redistribution and the Law

    Whether you are an activist, lawyer, wealth holder, or inhabitant of our highly unequal society, you may be wondering: How can we redistribute the wealth? In this webinar, Moh Mookim and Janelle Orsi of Sustainable Economies Law Center will share what they’ve learned about wealth redistribution and the law. In particular, what are the legal and tax considerations of people and foundations voluntarily gifting their wealth? What are considerations for people and organizations receiving that wealth?

    Our goal is for wealth to flow without legal barriers and in the spirit of solidarity, not charity. Far too often, professionals like lawyers, financial planners, and foundation leaders misunderstand the law, causing unnecessary blockages to redistribution. We’ll do our best to give a broad overview of the legal terrain and the various resources we’ve created on these topics, helping dispel some myths while we’re at it.

    Topics we’ll cover include:

    💰 Gifts to individuals
    💰 Making grants to non-501c3s
    💰
    Gift tax
    💰 Charitable tax deductions
    💰 Rules applicable to public charities, private foundations, and donor-advised funds
    💰 Endowment law
    💰 Giving land and homes

    This activity is approved by the California State Bar for 1.25 MCLE credit.

    Please email [email protected] for accessibility needs, if you can't afford the ticket price, and/or if you have any particular questions you hope will be answered by this webinar.

    Presenters

    Mohit Mookim

    Mohit Mookim 

    Mohit Mookim (they/them) is a land justice and wealth redistribution lawyer committed to abolition, landback, and anti-capitalist solidarity economies. Their work at the Law Center aims to liberate land from the speculative market by supporting collectives led by Black, Indigenous, and/or poor people. Mohit also leads the Law Center's wealth redistribution work, helping donors opt out of extractive financial systems and instead commit to grassroots social movements. They were raised in a big South Asian immigrant family on Lenapehoking (the NYC metro area) and have lived on Ohlone land in the Bay Area, CA for the last decade. They went to Stanford University for undergrad and law school.

    Janelle Orsi

    Janelle Orsi

    Janelle Orsi is a cartoonist, lawyer, and advocate focused on cooperatives, land trusts, housing justice, community-owned energy, and democratizing finance. She is Co-Founder of the cooperatively-structured nonprofit Sustainable Economies Law Center, which facilitates the growth of more sustainable and localized economies through education, research, and advocacy. She likes to have fun conversations and make cartoons about abolishing private property, abolishing the legal profession, and abolishing private wealth accumulation.

Thanks to our Partners and Collaborators: