Chris is a facilitator, organizer, and attorney focused on land and housing justice, participatory governance, and co-creating post capitalist / post white supremacist futures. He is Director of Land and Housing Justice at the Sustainable Economies Law Center, a democratically-run nonprofit supporting communities to create and control their own sustainable sources of land, labor, and capital. At the Law Center, he co-leads or contributes to the Law Center’s Housing, Worker Self-Directed Nonprofits, Farmland, and Money & Finance Programs.

He trained to become a lawyer without going to law school through the California Law Office Study Program, passing the California Bar in 2018. Prior to training as a barefoot lawyer, Chris completed an MA in Economics for Transition at Schumacher College, an international transformative learning center near Totnes, UK. His dissertation explored commons-based and community-determined responses to climate disruption in the Global South.

Chris also organizes with grassroots coalitions including the South Carolina Housing Justice Network, Lowcountry Mutual Aid Fund, Economic Development without Displacement Coalition, and Bay Area Rights of Nature Alliance; co-founded the Association of Legal Apprentices; serves on the Board of Directors for the New Economy Coalition; and facilitates the annual Law and Social Change Jam.

He previously worked with youth in the South Bronx, taught English in Japan, and explored Islam in Senegal; and in between those latter two experiences, he traversed 3/4 of the globe by way of rail, sail, foot, and thumb. He currently lives, loves, and organizes in Charleston, South Carolina.

chris@theselc.org

Roles at the Law Center

Other Projects and Affiliations

• Radical Real Estate Law School
• South Carolina Housing Justice Network (2020-present)
• Lowcountry Mutual Aid Fund (2020-present)
• New Economy Coalition, Board of Directors (2018-present)
• Charleston Democratic Socialists of America (2018-present)
• Nonprofit Democracy Network (2017-present)
• East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative (2016-present)

• YES, Jam Co-facilitator and organizer (2014 - present)

  • Emerging & Evolving Economies Jam

  • Law and Social Change Jam

• Defenders of Mother Earth - Huichin (2017-2018)
• Association of Legal Apprentices (2015-2018)

• Legal Apprentice (Jan 2014 - 2018)

  • Supervising Attorney: Neil Thapar, Sustainable Economies Law Center - Food and farm law (2017-2018)
  • Supervising Attorney: Cameron Rhudy, Sustainable Economies Law Center - Securities law (2015-2016)
  • Supervising Attorney: Scott Pesetsky, Smart Wills LLC - Wills and Trusts (2015)
    
  • Supervising Attorney: Linda Alvarez, Discovering Agreement - Contracts; IP (2014)

• UC Gill Tract Community Farm (2013 - 2017)

  • Stewardship Councilmember

• Economic Development without Displacement Coalition (2014 - 2016)

• Bay Area Rights of Nature Alliance (2014 - 2015)

  • Bay Area People’s Tribunal on the Rights of Nature

Publications and articles

• "Abolish landlords: Tenant organizing in the COVID-19 era", Renegade Paradise podcast
• "Mutual aid in the wake of COVID-19," Renegade Paradise podcast
• "Now is the time to take radical steps toward housing equity," YES! Magazine (2020)
• "Seeding a 100-year vision for land justice in the Bay Area" (2019)
• "Deepening the Nonprofit Democracy Network: Tools for Collective Self-governance" (2019)
• "Stopping displacement in Oakland through cooperative solutions" (2018)
• "Why the #DefundDAPL movement is about more than divesting from Wall Street" (2017)
• "Impact Story: People of Color Sustainable Housing Network" (2017)
• "Community Development and the Commons" (2016)
• "On the Transition to a Commons-Based Economy," CommonsTransition.org (2015)
• "Self Care, Community Care, and Systemic Change," GEO (2015)

• "Debating the Sharing Economy," Great Transition Initiative (2014)

• "Learning the Law in a Changing World," Shareable (2013)

• "California Passes Bill to Legalize Complementary Currencies," Shareable (2014)

• Development as Unfolding: Permaculture, Rights of Nature, and the Reinhabiting of Abundance (Schumacher College MA Thesis, 2012)

• Mother Nature Network, Local Correspondent (2010-2011)

Personal Interests

• Aikido

• Kayaking

• Direct Action

• Radical imagination
  

• Trees