Our timeframe for accepting Applications for our 2026 Fellows Cohort closed on July 1, 2026.

In 2013, we created a Legal Fellowship Program and provided fellowships to 5 new attorneys. As of 2026, the program has grown to 65 attorneys. Our current fellows are listed here.

Purpose and Description of the Fellowship

The fellowship provides training, mentorship, and other resources to attorneys beginning new law practices, legal organizations, and other projects serving the legal needs of local sustainable economies.  The goal of the program is to meet the legal needs of the growing sustainable economy movement.  

Meeting those needs requires that lawyers blaze new career paths and establish transactional law practices aimed at providing services to worker cooperatives, housing cooperatives, land trusts, and other democratically-governed organizations. In order to foster this growing community of lawyers, the Law Center invites lawyers of all experience levels to apply to become a Sustainable Economies Legal Fellow, if they 1) intend to meet those legal needs by starting a new law practice, or launching a legal organization or other project that will serve the legal needs of democratically-governed organizations, and 2) would benefit from the support the fellowship offers. Priority will be given to applicants from historically marginalized and low income communities who seek to serve similarly situated clients and communities.

New Legal Fellows will begin the program as a cohort, in the Fall of 2026.

After two years, Fellows “graduate” to Senior Fellow. Senior Fellows are expected to pay it forward by taking an active role in the program, such as through mentoring New Fellows and/or presenting Continuing Legal Education materials, webinars and/or workshops or leading discussion topics.

Senior Fellows may remain in the program for as long as their law practice, legal organization, or project continues to align with the program goals.

Benefits of the Program

Sustainable Economies Legal Fellows receive training, mentorship, and other resources through our Monthly Fellows Calls, other scheduled calls and resources, and our  multi-day, in-person convenings each year, normally held in the Fall. 

The Sustainable Economies Law Center’s Legal Fellowship is an unpaid fellowship. However, we do sponsor annual membership in the Cooperative Professionals Guild for all active Fellows who are interested, and we provide reimbursement for travel and lodging expenses for the annual multi-day Fellows Convenings on a need-basis, as our funding permits. 1st and 2nd year Fellows and our most active Fellows from previous years will be given priority for expense reimbursements.

Applications

Our timeframe for accepting applications for our 2026 Fellows Cohort closed on July 1, 2026.  Please check back next year for our next open application window.

This fall, SELC is offering an 11-part workshop series for attorneys and legal professionals seeking to build skills and knowledge to meet the legal needs of the sharing economy.  Click here for the full listing of workshops. This is the first workshop series of its kind!  The curriculum for the workshop expands upon SELC’s groundbreaking book, Practicing Law in the Sharing Economy (ABA Books 2012).

That what a peer-to-peer economy needs is more attorneys might, in lay people, spark cognitive dissonance. The problem, according to Orsi, is how society thinks about lawyers. And to fix a modern problem, she and her colleagues are leaning on the model of that famous attorney of centuries past, Abraham Lincoln.

As a sharing lawyer, Janelle Orsi thought she would write agreements and form organizations. She quickly realized however, that her clients were continually running up against legal barriers that were too high and too difficult for people to navigate. In go-getter fashion, Orsi co-founded, along with attorney Jenny Kassan, the Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC) to break down some of the legal barriers and help people navigate them.

If you’re starting (or thinking of starting) a sharing economy company, there’s a very good chance you’ll wonder at some point: ”Is this actually legal?”

When it comes to sharing with others, Janelle Orsi practices what she preaches. Orsi, an Oakland solo practitioner, specializes in a new niche: “sharing law.” She even wrote the book on it: Practicing Law in the Sharing Economy (ABA Books, 2012).