Goodwin Procter’s Neighborhood Business Initiative (NBI) is a community outreach program that provides pro bono legal services to low-income entrepreneurs and small-business owners in underserved neighborhoods throughout Greater Boston. Neighborhood Business Initiative offers direct pro bono legal representation as well as neighborhood-based legal workshops and clinics. To hear NBI clients and their Goodwin pro bono attorneys tell their stories, click here.
As explained in this video, NBI pro bono clients starting or growing a business can face legal challenges ranging from obtaining favorable terms on a lease and negotiating contracts, to protecting intellectual property and resolving disputes that may arise in the normal course of business. Goodwin attorneys have played a key role in helping these bootstrap start-up businesses succeed.
This year, Goodwin Procter celebrated the 10th anniversary of the NBI program. Since 2001, more than 350 Goodwin Procter attorneys and paralegals have donated more than 10,000 hours of pro bono legal assistance to small-business owners and entrepreneurs through this unique program.