Nonprofits

Dorsey recognizes that one of the ways we can most effectively have a substantial impact assisting disadvantaged individuals is to help create and serve nonprofit organizations that in turn, can make additional important services available to the disadvantaged.

To assist our lawyers in this effort, Dorsey has a Pro Bono Counsel, an attorney who specializes in nonprofits, as part of its pro bono leadership team. Her mission is to train and mentor our lawyers to do pro bono nonprofit work. Our Pro Bono Counsel is not to primarily do the nonprofit work herself, but to encourage our lawyers to do it. She is always available to provide legal advice and guidance to Dorsey’s attorneys, and she regularly trains and supervises dozens of summer associates and attorneys who staff projects for nonprofit organizations.

Dorsey’s legal work in the nonprofit area includes a variety of legal issues such as preparing governance documents and IRS tax-exemption applications. We also work with nonprofits that have ongoing issues, including tax exemption compliance issues, real estate transactions, trademark issues, and employee arrangements. Dorsey attorneys often serve as pro bono general legal counsel for nonprofits.

In addition, Dorsey’s attorneys have long established relationships with several nonprofit assistance and micro minority-owned business organizations, and participate in several nonprofit and minority-owned business clinics. In Minneapolis, they include LEGALCORPS, Milestone Growth Fund, Latino Economic Development Center and the Business Law Clinic at the University of Minnesota Law School. For example, our attorneys work with the University of Minnesota Business Law legal clinic supervising teams of law students representing start-up micro minority-owned businesses.

Dorsey’s New York attorneys have long been involved in Project Enterprise, which is a Grameen-style provider of micro-business loans in New York City. It does not require prior business experience, credit history or collateral to provide market rate financing for small businesses. Inspired by the success of Grameen Bonds, Project Enterprise’s mission is to support and develop micro and minority entrepreneurs and small businesses in under resourced communities around New York City.

Dorsey also offers a new type of legal service to our nonprofit pro bono clients - a legal review service. With the stricter regulatory environment for nonprofits, and many times less funding available to nonprofits for legal fees, these reviews are an excellent tool to make sure nonprofits are in compliance with the regulations. Each review is unique and tailored to the specific organization being reviewed, but all of the reviews consist of Dorsey attorneys reviewing, issue spotting, and revising, as needed, corporate documents, tax documents, agreements, policies, financial information, and anything else that may be of interest depending on the specific reviewed organization's activities.

Our lawyers also partner with corporate clients’ in-house lawyers on pro bono projects. For example, we have partnered with in-house counsel at a neighborhood clinic for over a decade. More recently we have partnered with another client to do healthcare directives for low income seniors.

About three years ago, the Dorsey Seattle office was approached to assist in the formation of the William O. Douglas Trail Foundation. The Foundation’s purpose is to complete the trail more fully described below honoring one of this country’s most famous jurists. Since then, a number of Seattle lawyers have helped the Foundation obtain 501c3 status, and provided legal support to assemble the property necessary to complete the trail.

The William O. Douglas Trail (W.O.D. Trail) is a 75‑mile recreational pathway which courses through the City of Yakima, traverses Yakima County, and reaches portions of Lewis and Pierce Counties, connecting to Mount Rainier National Park. It is named after influential Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, perhaps the most famous person to grow up in Yakima, and who was the longest serving Justice in the United States history. Stricken with polio as a boy and in a weakened physical state, William O. Douglas frequently walked along the trail to strengthen his legs. As the most prolific author in the history of the Supreme Court, Douglas wrote several books about the historical, cultural, and natural features of Washington State.

This trail interprets numerous historic and natural sites that Douglas visited and wrote about. The W.O.D. Trail connects Douglas’s boyhood home site to the Wilderness Area that bears his name by Act of Congress. Because of the Cascade Mountain rain‑shadow effect, coupled with rapid changes in elevation and precipitation along the 75‑mile trail route, the Trail passes through twelve different ecosystems from steppe to forest to alpine zones, and contains some of the greatest biological diversity found in the U.S. over a comparable distance. The Trail is 90% complete based upon the linking of existing public trails and lands.

The W.O.D. Trail will be open to all forms of muscle‑powered users, including pedestrian, bicycle, equestrian, snowshoeing, and skiing. This Trail also follows many miles along the ancient Cowlitz Pass Indian Trail where thousands of moccasins have passed through the centuries across Yakima County and the Cascade Crest near Mount Rainier. Mount Rainier figures prominently in the state’s history and natural environment, serves as an icon of the region, and connects Eastern Washington to Western Washington.

The trail project still has a way to go, but because of many successful grant applications to local, state and federal agencies, the Foundation is confident it will accomplish its mission. The addition of the William O. Douglas Trail to the Pacific Northwest’s recreational amenities will serve as a special reminder of this country’s jurisprudential history.