U.S. diversity push for lawyers, agents to tackle housing crisis

Posted by Sustainable Economies Law Center · December 17, 2021 12:15 PM · 1 reaction

Farewell tribute: Charlotte Tsui and Yassi Eskandari-Qajar

Posted by Mwende Hinojosa · December 16, 2021 1:29 PM · 1 reaction

Lessons Guiding Legal Support for the Mutual Aid Movement

Posted by Erika Sato · December 16, 2021 1:29 PM · 1 reaction

Remember when the pandemic first started? So many of us in the solidarity economy movement were excited to explore and share alternatives to our current extractive and exploitative system. Mutual aid projects popped up all over the United States. We saw pictures of empty freeways under clear blue skies. We put a halt on evictions and foreclosures. Boxes of masks and other medical supplies were sent from Japan to China and then from China to Italy. And those masks came with poems!

Our mission is to cultivate a new legal landscape that supports community resilience and grassroots economic empowerment. We provide essential legal tools - education, research, advice, and advocacy - so communities everywhere can develop their own sustainable sources of food, housing, energy, jobs, and other vital aspects of a thriving community. The Law Center focuses on worker cooperatives and other democratically-governed enterprises because they provide pathways out of poverty, economic stability for working families, and wealth generation for thriving, resilient communities.

During our years of supporting movements toward democratic, employee ownership, there has been an exponential growth of community-focused entrepreneurs launching cooperatives and existing business owners seeking to sell to their employees. Both groups face a glaring gap: competent legal expertise and legal resources critical to entrepreneurs as they transition to worker ownership. In the Fall of 2018, the Law Center began on an ambitious path to addresses these gaps through funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Through a multi-pronged approach of seven integrated projects, we are beginning to address the gap in legal expertise and legal resources for a national transition towards democratic employee ownership. These projects described below will be shaped and evolve based on the input from stakeholders across the country. However, even as these projects adapt to the needs of our communities, we thought you should know about the initial concepts. 

Want to stay up to date on our project listed below? Subscribe to email updates or update your to email preferences about our worker cooperative resources, trainings, & events at the bottom of the page.

Community Education Video Series

Our Community Education Video Series will demystify and build understanding of the various models of worker and employee ownership for entrepreneurs and community based organizations (CBO) integrating employee ownership into their social enterprises. Ricardo will lead the Community Education Video Series covering the various forms of worker ownership featuring conversations with experienced attorneys, worker-owners, and thought leaders. A decision matrix guiding entrepreneurs through appropriate worker ownership options will complement the video series which will published online in thematic modules.

Our Community Education Video Series will provide an overview of the various forms of worker ownership and describe the legal advantages/drawbacks of choosing one form over another. By the end of the funding cycle, this video series will be used by 100 cooperative attorneys, entrepreneurs, and CBOs and published on Co-opLaw.org. 

Co-opLaw.org

Our comprehensive worker-owner legal resource library, Co-opLaw.org, will provide a central legal resource hub for attorneys and entrepreneurs ready to dive deeper into cooperative law and serve as a place to disseminate the resources created through this project. These resources will lower the cost of legal services needed to launch a worker cooperative or transition a business to worker ownership.

Co-opLaw.org will be redesigned to increase usability and expand cooperative law concepts. By the end of the funding cycle it will included a detailed analysis of cooperative formation options and sample documents for all 50 states.

National Cooperative Law Fellowship

Our national legal incubator for cooperative attorneys, the National Cooperative Law Fellowship, will support a national system for attorneys learning cooperative law and providing legal services to low-income communities and communities of color.

A National Cooperative Law Fellowship will provide incubation resources to Fellows including monthly calls where Fellows present and ask questions to other attorneys in a confidential, safe space. Fellows will also attend two in-person convenings per Project Year featuring intensive training, networking, and mentorship. By the end of Year 2, the program will be designing a pilot system helping Fellows get hands-on experience in cooperative lawyering. By the end of the funding cycle, up to 15 new attorneys will be Fellows in the incubation program, and up to 15 attorneys in their first six months as Fellows will receive stipends.

Legal Practice Guide for Advising CA Cooperatives

Our California Practice Guide for Attorneys Focused on Worker Cooperatives, the first of its kind in the nation, will help to mainstream the practice of cooperative law and will be crafted for easy replication and adaptation in other states nationwide. A comprehensive Legal Practice Guide for Advising California Cooperatives will provide fully developed, step-by-step procedures for attorneys advising cooperative clients, including tips and tactics, strategic options, and lists of what to consider and how to proceed when advising employee owned enterprises.

Online Training Program for Cooperative Attorneys

Our Intensive Online Training Program for Cooperative Attorneys will empower attorneys to specialize in serving democratic, employee-owned businesses and deepen their legal expertise via an anytime, on-demand, massive online open course. An Online Training Program for Cooperative Attorneys will be developed with materials created and refined through the Fellowship’s intensive in-person trainings and other resources. By the end of Year 3, this training program will be online and tested by at least 30 attorneys.

Cooperative Professionals Guild

The national association of worker cooperative attorneys, the Cooperative Professionals Guild, will convene cooperative attorneys and accountants in a peer support network with ongoing learning opportunities.

An expanded Cooperative Professionals Guild, operating as a project of Sustainable Economies Law Center, will provide peer support, ongoing training, and networking opportunities. By the end of Year 3 at least 50 attorneys who specialize in providing legal and technical assistance to worker-owned enterprises will be participating in the Guild which will coordinate at least one national conference for cooperative attorneys and accountants each year of the project.

Law for Economic Democracy Network

Our integrated online technology platform, the Law for Economic Democracy Network (formerly known as NextLegal.org), will provide an online social network for attorneys learning cooperative law, a space for training, mentorship, and networking, and an entry to the broader cooperative law community. This online community will provide legal professionals a place to learn, share, and support each other in providing high-quality legal services to cooperatives of all kinds. By the end of Year 3, NextLegal.org will have increased its membership by 200+ legal professionals.

Get email updates about worker cooperatives resources, trainings, & events!

Subscribe to the Law Center's email updates about worker cooperatives resources, trainings, and events, which we only send occasionally and usually based on your interests, below! Want to subscribe to email updates about our different programs, such as our Food and Farmland, Housing, and Energy programs? Please visit our general sign up page here.

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Hi there! I'm Ricardo, the Director of Economic Democracy at the Sustainable Economies Law Center and below you'll find some of my favorite, go-to resources for worker cooperatives, democratic organizations, and worker self-directed nonprofits. I update this once or twice a year, so if you find any broken links or would like to suggest another resource to post on this page, just email me at [email protected] Thanks!

Looking for direct legal support?

The Law Center created this list of attorneys, accountants, and technical assistance providers to give you a place to start your search for a lawyer to help with your project. We aren’t vouching for or recommending these people, we just know that they service small scale food businesses, cooperatives, shared housing, nonprofits, and social enterprises. Shop around for the right fit!

Not ready for ongoing representation or unable to afford an attorney right now? Come to the Resilient Communities Legal Cafe where we provide direct legal advice on issues like cooperative business ownership, employment law, financing your coop, and more! We host multiple Legal Cafes per month in Oakland and Berkeley, so hopefully you'll be able to find one that fits your schedule. You can find our Legal Cafe calendar here and find out what types of legal advice we do give by clicking here.

Since there's a lot of stuff below, click the following links to drop down to the place you want:

• Do-It-Yourself legal resources for all types of cooperative enterprises

• DIY resources & training for worker cooperatives

• Resources for converting existing businesses to democratic, employee ownership

• Resources for cooperative development

• Resources on transitioning nonprofits to worker self-directed organizations

• Subscribe to email updates about worker cooperatives resources, trainings, & events

My recommendations for Do-It-Yourself legal resources for all types of cooperative enterprises:

Have a legal question but not quite ready to read a full legal guide? Then try our free, downloadable Bite-Sized Legal Guides for issues like How To Make Decisions in a Cooperative, How To Run a Co-Op Child Care Arrangement, How to Incorporate as an LLC or Partnership, and many more!

If you want to do online research on the legal issues the worker-owned cooperatives have to navigate, including template bylaws and cartoon operating agreements, who is an employee and who isn't, how to capitalize worker coops in non-extractive ways, and our legal guide to cooperative conversions, then check out Co-opLaw.org. We're constantly growing our online resource pages on Co-opLaw.org, to provide more legal information, best practices, and supporting tools for cooperatively owned businesses and organizations. Try searching your legal questions there as a starting point for any of your cooperatively related legal questions.

Starting a food justice enterprise? Look through our free, comprehensive Legal Eats handbook that covers California-specific legal topics for small and medium sized food enterprises, including restaurants, farms, and grocery stores. You can also watch our Legal Eats workshop online!

If you want to know about the different options for non-extractive financing your food, cooperative, or farm enterprise enterprise, then I would suggest perusing our Grassroots Finance Guide for California Farmers! Even though it says "Farmers," most of the strategies in the guide can be used by any cooperative enterprise!

My recommendations for DIY resources & training for worker cooperatives:

If you're looking for our comprehensive legal manual for starting and operating a worker-owned cooperative, Think Outside the Boss: How to Create a Worker-Owned Business, you can download it for free on our website here. We regularly put on workshops and teach-ins specifically for cooperative entrepreneurs, existing business owners, and economic development professionals to help folks understand the concepts in our Think Outside the Boss manual. Please visit our events calendar to see if any are coming up! You can also watch our Think Outside the Boss workshop online!

If you're a start-up cooperative, the Democracy at Work Institute hosts a monthly webinar for groups and people at the very early stages of their worker cooperative project on the first Friday of each month. You can register here.

If you're looking to connect with the national hub for worker cooperatives, the professionals who serve them, and the organizations that support them, visit the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives' resource page. The USFWC, along with its affiliated organization, the Democracy at Work Institute, maintains a large library of model and working documents from and for worker cooperatives, as well as academic and practitioner research.

For one time or ongoing technical support, try reaching out to the resources of the USFWC Co-op Clinic, formerly the Democracy at Work Network (DAWN). The Co-op Clinic has a network of peer advisors, all with strong social and professional ties, who provide technical assistance services to worker cooperatives. The Co-op Clinic aims to meet the demand for technical assistance and development advice with high-quality services and to increase worker cooperative technical assistance capacity from inside the movement.

If you're supporting, thinking about, or are a cooperatively owned farm, check out the Greenhorn's guidebook, Cooperative Farming: Frameworks for Farming Together.

If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area and looking to connect with the worker coop community there, see the Network of Bay Area Worker Cooperatives website and attend one of their upcoming events. NoBAWC (pronounced "No Boss") is a grassroots organization of democratic workplaces dedicated to building workplace democracy in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Find out how to get involved, when their next General Membership Meeting, or upcoming NoBAWC events are on their website, nobawc.org!

For introductory materials on cooperatives and the solidarity economy, check out the Asian American Solidarity Economies Network Webinar Series on cooperatives!

My recommendations for converting existing businesses to democratic, employee ownership resources:

Here's our fairly comprehensive Legal Guide to Cooperative Conversions.This guide gives a legal roadmap for business owners interested in cooperative conversion, aka transitioning their businesses to democratic employee-ownership. It was prepared as part of a project to increase worker-ownership for low- to moderate-income workers. We were aiming to provide an overview of the legal steps involved for selling owners to convert their businesses to employee-ownership. We have provided a few models of how to convert a business, the issues raised in valuing a business, and related financing, governance and employment law considerations. Finally, we closed with a few case studies that illustrate the points we raised in the guide. I hope you find it useful!

My two go-to organizations with publicly available materials on converting existing businesses to worker cooperatives are Project Equity and the Democracy at Work Institute (not to be confused with Richard Wolff's organization, "Democracy at Work"). For lots of good resources and referral info, visit the Democracy at Work Institute's resources page on Becoming Employee Owned and for a high-level but very useful toolkit for business owners interested in converting to worker cooperatives, check out DAWI's Becoming Employee Owned handout here.

Also, visit Project Equity's website for more info and to schedule a consultation with them about converting your business to a worker cooperative. One great free resource from Project Equity is their "CASE STUDIES: BUSINESS CONVERSIONS TO WORKER COOPERATIVES - Insights and Readiness Factors for Owners and Employees."

My recommendations for resources for cooperative development:

A great intro to the where we're at as a field with worker coop development is Hilary Abell's Worker Cooperatives: Pathways to Scale (Project Equity). This white paper that aims to help build the field of U.S. worker co-op development by providing a current view of the cooperative landscape and by analyzing factors that inhibit or promote cooperative development.

To understand how to enter or refine cooperative development strategies, check out DAWI's "Development Frameworks" webinar. Worker Cooperative Development can mean different things to different people, encompassing a broad range of activities, and also a range of philosophies and underlying principles. This self-assessment tool helps worker cooperative developers clarify their model, and its assumptions, and consider whether they are organized in a way to achieve the impacts they desire.

Visit Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO) to watch, listen, and read news, analysis, and engage in open forums on grassroots organizing to build and finance worker- and community-owned, democratically run, solidarity-based, ecologically sustainable enterprises and organizations. Here are two of my favorite articles:

• My go-to article on Arizmendi Bakery’s replication strategy, The Replication of Arizmendi Bakery: A Model of the Democratic Worker Cooperative Movement.

• GEO’s Worker Cooperative Development Models (pdf version here and online version here) provides case studies on cooperative development strategies used in the United States.

For introductory materials on cooperatives and the solidarity economy, check out the Asian American Solidarity Economies Network Webinar Series on cooperatives!

My recommendations for resources on transitioning organizations to worker self-directed nonprofits:

Here are some resources that my coworkers in our Worker Self-Directed Nonprofits program put together to support nonprofits to better embody the more just, democratic, and sustainable world they are working toward:

• Recorded webinar: “Worker Self Directed Nonprofits: Implementing Workplace Democracy in Nonprofit Organizations"

• Peer network: Join our Google Group and/or our Facebook Group to participate in an informal peer network for active and aspiring worker self-directed nonprofit practitioners. Connect with others, ask questions, and share resources about nonprofit workplace democracy.

• WSDN: TV for Worker Self-Directed Nonprofits: ”WSDN” sounds so much like the name of a TV station that we couldn’t resist: We started a news show featuring short clips discussing various facets of worker self-direction. Check out our playlist below!

SELC has also created resources for democratic organizations to replicate and use as inspiration. Find our Peer Review Questionnaire, the accompanying Self Assessment Questionnaire, and our internal Operational Policies here.

Interested in our theory of change for worker cooperatives? Check it out here!

Get email updates about worker cooperatives resources, trainings, & events!

Subscribe to the Law Center's email updates about worker cooperatives resources, trainings, and events, which we only send occasionally and usually based on your interests, below!

Want to subscribe to email updates about our different programs, such as our Food and Farmland, Housing, and Energy programs? Please visit our general sign up page here.

Want to unsubscribe? Please visit our unsubscribe page.

We want to live in a society where enterprises and assets are owned and controlled by the communities that depend on them for livelihoods, sustenance, and ecological well-being.

Sustainable Economies Law Center's Cooperatives Program works to vastly expand the legal resources and cultivate a fertile legal landscape for the growth of cooperatives for the benefit of workers. We provide education, advocacy, research, and advice for worker centered cooperatives, including the creation of legal documents and guidance for best practices. Sign up below to receive updates about our Cooperatives Program work.

Our Center prioritizes cooperative ventures for a simple reason: We believe that enterprises and assets should be owned and controlled by the communities that depend on them for livelihoods, sustenance, and ecological well-being. The legal architecture of organizations and enterprises is, in many respects, the architecture of our economy. Legal structures dictate how wealth flows through our organizations and how decisions are made. Traditional enterprise models are designed to grow the wealth of people who already have wealth, giving all decision-making power to those same individuals. By contrast, cooperatives put wealth and decisions into the hands of workers and consumers, building community well-being and transforming local economies.

Want to stay up to date about our worker cooperative and worker self-directed nonprofit resources, events, and policy campaigns? Sign up below!

Want to subscribe to email updates about our different programs, such as our Food and Farmland, Housing, and Energy programs? Please visit our general sign up page here.

Want to unsubscribe? Please visit our unsubscribe page.

A while back we asked ourselves, who can make policy? Our answer: EVERYONE! 

2017 was a rough year, but communities continued to come together and build people-powered economies. We want to share the work we did this year at the Sustainable Economies Law Center, and give you a few reasons to stay radically hopeful!

Below is our 2017 Annual Report highlighting the progress we've made toward a more democratic and equitable economy. (Click the image below to see a full-sized PDF!) All of this was accomplished in deep partnership with people and groups JUST LIKE YOU! Here's to flying far together in 2018 and beyond. 

If we don’t want our organizations and movements to replicate the oppressive power dynamics of the dominant culture, let’s design for the power relations we do want. This week, we are incredibly excited to host nearly 40 people from 17 social justice organizations from across the country for the three-day launch of the Nonprofit Democracy Network - a community of practice, organizational development training program, and peer support network for nonprofit organizations that want to deepen democracy within their organizations and make our movements for justice more participatory, responsive, and leaderful.

Jamie Facciola of Repair Revolution. Photos by Gabriel Tolliver of Oaklandnorth.net

Meet Jamie. She’s an entrepreneur who first came to the Resilient Communities Legal Cafe in 2015 with a question: "If I reframe repair, will people come?" Since then, her business, Repair Revolution, has gone through many iterations. She’s brought together a cluster of neighborhood repair shops for pop-up events in Oakland, where Oaklanders bring their old clothes, phones, and small appliances to be fixed, and she operated a two-month-long repair salon at OwlNWood, a local boutique in uptown Oakland. 

In a world that desperately needs change, what if we could unleash the full changemaking potential of nonprofit organizations everywhere? It’s time to explore the power of worker self-directed nonprofits (WSDNs) to cultivate more diverse leaders, accountable organizations, and equitable workplaces that represent the same values of justice and democracy that we work to create in the world.