Community Economic Development

Pepper lawyers are engaged in substantial pro bono work to preserve neighborhoods, assist small start-up businesses and nonprofits, and improve and promote community economic development in all the cities and regions in which Pepper practices.

In our Tangled Title/Home Ownership Practice Group in Philadelphia, lawyers from our corporate, tax, real estate, litigation, and trusts and estates practice areas work to help low-income homeowners obtain clear title to their homes by seeking quiet title rulings granting clear title for clients, clearing away ancient tax liens, obtaining waivers of fines and penalties while setting up payment plans for past-due utility and tax bills, and providing other assistance. This work enables clients to obtain grants and low-interest loans so they can remain in their homes and not abandon them. Entire neighborhoods benefit when homeowners can retain and improve their properties.

Pepper lawyers in Pittsburgh have worked as part of the Beaver Initiative for Growth, or BIG, in a partnership with a legal clinic at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law to transform abandoned manufacturing sites in Beaver County into sites suitable for redevelopment as small business and manufacturing ventures.

The firm’s Pittsburgh lawyers also have formed a partnership with the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management to accept screened referrals of groups seeking to incorporate as nonprofit corporations and obtain federal tax-exempt status. Similarly, lawyers in our California office have represented two Irvine-based organizations in drafting articles of incorporation and tax-exemption applications for filing with the Internal Revenue Service.

Lawyers in our Washington, Detroit, Wilmington and Harrisburg offices regularly accept cases from bar associations and public interest law centers that focus on promoting community economic development by taking on legal representation of clients involving low-income consumer bankruptcy, consumer protection, landlord-tenant and housing redevelopment, and a range of other matters.

Lawyers in our New York and Boston offices have partnered with well-respected nonprofits such as the Global Workers Alliance and the Southern Poverty Law Center on projects designed to promote greater economic opportunity for low-income individuals.

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