Neighborhood Legal Services as House Counsel to Community-Based Efforts to Achieve Economic Justice
Abstract
The introduction provides an overview of the nature and importance of community-based economic development (CED), the types of community groups involved in this process, the contributions that lawyers can make, and the significance of Brooklyn A's community development practice as a model of CED lawyering. Section I describes the context of the East Brooklyn experience through brief profiles of the East Brooklyn communities, Brooklyn A, its Community Development Unit, and the Unit's work. Section II describes Brooklyn A's house counsel approach and explains the rationale behind it. The main body of this article (Section 11I) examines the work of Brooklyn A's Community Development Unit through three detailed case studies. Section IV draws upon the case studies to assess the advantages and disadvantages of Brooklyn A's approach and the lessons its experience offers to other public interest lawyers and law offices.