The CED Clinic (IH, E) is ideal for students who are interested in using law creatively to combat structural inequalities in New York City and beyond.
Student interns learn a range of lawyering skills – collaborative problem solving, interviewing and counseling, negotiation, transactional drafting, and oral advocacy – through representation of groups like worker-owned cooperatives, community land trusts, tenant unions, and grassroots nonprofits and coalitions. Through the seminar component of the CEDC, students situate their work in the political economy of racial capitalism, with an emphasis on how to strategically deploy law in support of organizing efforts for social change.
The work of the CEDC is organized around two main practice areas:
Economic Democracy
The CEDC focuses on workplace democracy and the redistribution of wealth and power in New York City, through an abolitionist democratic lens. We work with community-led institutions in historically plundered neighborhoods on reparative social equity measures, including the transition to just marijuana policies and health justice initiatives that address the social determinants of health.
Student interns in the economic democracy practice area work collaboratively with worker cooperatives, community land trusts, credit unions, not-for-profits, and movements for racial and economic justice on a range of legal issues, including entity-type counseling, legal formation, governance, contracts, tax exemption, employment, and other organizational operational issues.
Anti-Displacement
The CEDC provides legal support to tenant organizations that are fighting for enhanced protections for renters, including good cause eviction and collective bargaining rights for tenant unions. CEDC student interns also assist tenant associations in litigation for repairs and against landlord harassment and abandonment.
Student interns in this practice area facilitate tenant meetings, lead community legal education workshops, and appear in Housing Court and/or administrative proceedings on behalf of tenants.