Lessons from Baltimore and Washington, D.C.: Working with Community-Based Organizations to Build Capacity and Fight for Economic Justice

#BlackLivesMatter is not only a criminal law issue, but also an issue of economic justice and political empowerment within urban centers that face increasing income inequality and gentrification. This concurrent session will engage participants in the economic justice work of community economic development and transactional law clinics in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Our clinic work with community-based organizations aims to capture and anchor capital that is essential to redressing community members’ economic inequality, via new economic institutions, community-owned institutions, and social enterprises; and build capacity within community-based organizations to further their efforts to increase political and economic power within poor and low-income communities. Participants will hear from clinical law professors from Baltimore and Washington, D.C. law schools. Our work includes legal representation of community land trusts, limited equity cooperatives, worker cooperatives, nonprofits, social enterprises, churchbased credit unions, and entrepreneurs who are returning citizens. Participants in this concurrent session will: •Learn about the collaborations between clinics and community-based groups in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. to combat social and economic injustice; • Learn methods to build capacity within communitybased groups; Understand the learning objectives that students acquire from working with community-based groups, which include both lawyering skills and tools to combat income inequality and other economic injustices; and Understand the challenges of engaging in community-based work, and come away with concrete tools for positioning clinics to engage in movement work that is timely but often unpredictable and not neatly packaged for student involvement

Lessons from Baltimore and Washington, D.C.: Working with Community-Based Organizations to Build Capacity and Fight for Economic Justice

#BlackLivesMatter is not only a criminal law issue, but also an issue of economic justice and political empowerment within urban centers that face increasing income inequality and gentrification. This concurrent session will engage participants in the economic justice work of community economic development and transactional law clinics in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Our clinic work with community-based organizations aims to capture and anchor capital that is essential to redressing community members’ economic inequality, via new economic institutions, community-owned institutions, and social enterprises; and build capacity within community-based organizations to further their efforts to increase political and economic power within poor and low-income communities. Participants will hear from clinical law professors from Baltimore and Washington, D.C. law schools. Our work includes legal representation of community land trusts, limited equity cooperatives, worker cooperatives, nonprofits, social enterprises, churchbased credit unions, and entrepreneurs who are returning citizens. Participants in this concurrent session will: •Learn about the collaborations between clinics and community-based groups in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. to combat social and economic injustice; • Learn methods to build capacity within communitybased groups; Understand the learning objectives that students acquire from working with community-based groups, which include both lawyering skills and tools to combat income inequality and other economic injustices; and Understand the challenges of engaging in community-based work, and come away with concrete tools for positioning clinics to engage in movement work that is timely but often unpredictable and not neatly packaged for student involvement