We continue to live inside of our mission to cultivate a new legal landscape that supports community resilience, grassroots economic empowerment and thriving communities.  These uncertain times we’ve all been navigating have driven us to center interdependence in everything that we do.  Throughout 2021, as we’ve deepened our relationships with a vast network of legal workers, culture bearers, movement activists, coop workers and more, we find ourselves grateful to be in community with others who are invested in our collective interdependence. 

Take a look at our 2021 Annual Report for all the details on all the wonderful people we worked with this year and what we were able to accomplish together!

Glimmers of 2022

The new year is just around the corner and we have so many new ideas and projects percolating, we wanted to give a preview of what you might expect from us in 2022:

• Building out the Nonprofit Democracy Network with a year-long training program
• More and more resources on Co-opLaw.org
• Ecosystem building within the coop world
• Doubling down on WORC coalition
• Agitating around whether, and if so, how, worker co-op conversions should be supported
• Organizing practitioners (including law students) to support land return movement
• Continuing to work with farmers of color and from other marginalized communities to remove farmland from the speculative market 
• Strategically supporting clients who are rematriating/returning land and housing to collective stewardship/ownership/control
• Supporting Esther’s Orbit Room and 7th St project as an example of corridor-focused community-led development
• A legal services fund

Farewell tribute: Charlotte Tsui and Yassi Eskandari-Qajar

Our colleagues Charlotte and Yassi will be moving on to their next adventures in 2022. Both of them have shaped our organization in countless ways, guiding us with their unique leadership styles and innovative ways of approaching the work. Here are a few ways we appreciate them.

Do you have fond memories, words of appreciation, or a farewell message you'd like to share with them? Reply to this email and we'll pass it their way!

Lessons Guiding Legal Support for the Mutual Aid Movement

How have people continued to survive the pandemic and repeated ecological disasters, despite a threadbare social safety net, minimal government aid, and stagnant wages? Mutual Aid! Law Center staff Erika Sato has been steeped in mutual aid networks over the past two years and shares lessons she’s learned on how legal workers can support this vital movement. Read her insightful takeaways here.

Legal Fellow Highlight

Our latest cohort of Legal Fellows serve the legal needs of a diverse array of businesses, cooperatives, and educational institutions around the country, focused on growing local sustainable economies. Throughout the year, we’re featuring a few of our current fellows and the fantastic work they’re doing. Click here to see all of our 2021 Fellows.

Kathy Gregg
Advocate for a human centered economy that provides all individuals, families and communities with the time, love, resources, opportunities and connections they need to thrive.

Martina Watson
Empowering individuals and businesses to achieve economic independence and self-sustainability through entrepreneurship

Michael S. Russell
Community lawyer and arts advocate working with his clients to find a new way

Pacyinz Lyfoung
Decoding laws and designing new legal tools and legal frameworks at intersections with communities for fair ownership and benefit-sharing