Bridging the justice gap in New York

NONPROFIT EDUCATION ORGANIZATIONS

Working with community based not-for-profit corporations can be a rewarding and exciting pro bono experience for attorneys. Lawyers Alliance's practice in the education area focuses on:

• nonprofit organizations that are providing educational and recreational opportunities to public school students either during the school day or in after-school programs, and
• nonprofit organizations that are operating alternative public schools, including public charter schools.

We invite you to join Lawyers Alliance in working with such organizations to help address the needs of New York City's youth.

Nonprofit education organizations often need assistance on corporate, employment, tax, intellectual property, and real estate matters. You may be able to use the same skills you use in your regular practice to help an organization incorporate and apply for tax-exempt status; negotiate a contract or a lease; develop a licensing agreement or register a trademark or copyright; or review personnel policies. Some work also requires consideration of state and city regulations governing school-age child care programs or charter schools or Board of Education regulations.

We have developed this "Library" to assist you in representing nonprofit education organizations. It includes model documents and educational memoranda, as well as links to a variety of other organizations working with education nonprofits. There is a folder focusing on legal issues for programs operating after-school or in-school programming, which includes model documents, links to key regulations, and memoranda on some issues that arise frequently for programs such as background screening and permission slips. There is also a folder focusing on representing charter schools, which includes memoranda discussing several legal issues that often arise and a model by-laws, open meetings policy, and conflicts policy. The other libraries on Probono.net, particularly the Incorporation and Tax Exemption Library, Corporate Governance Library, and Employment Library, also include model documents that may assist you in representing education organizations.

Lawyers Alliance provides ongoing support to the attorneys who accept education cases. Each case that is placed with a pro bono attorney is also assigned to one of our in-house legal staff who co-counsel on the case and are always available to answer your questions and to assist in any way possible. 

This practice area offers an exciting opportunity for you to expand your legal knowledge and really make a difference for public school students and other young people in New York City and beyond.