MoProBono - Spring 2018 Update

18 MoProBono Spring 2018 Our legal teams around the globe continue to represent a wide variety of nonprofits and social entrepreneurs, helping these trailblazers navigate the complex landscape in which they operate and enabling them to expand the reach of their important missions. Underscoring our commitment to cross-office and cross-discipline collaboration, a diverse team of tax and finance lawyers are working with The Nature Conservancy as it sets up a “water fund” to preserve water flow in the Yakima River. This complex project is intended to use capital invested by social impact investors to acquire water rights in the headwaters of the Yakima River in Washington State. San Diego partner Shane Shelley, Denver counsel Kelley Howes, Los Angeles associate Clara Lim, and San Francisco associates Jessica Stern and Allison Peck are leading the matter. Meanwhile, San Francisco partner Susan Mac Cormac, working with Northern Virginia senior associate Jessica Bissey, designed and launched a legal advisory group for Echoing Green. The advisory group is composed of 25 lawyers from academia and private practice with expertise in social enterprise and impact investing. This group provides legal advice to Echoing Green Fellows, a select group of social entrepreneurs engaged in creating new enterprises around the world. In California, the state in which our firm was founded, a legal team recently negotiated an agreement for Starlight Children’s Foundation that brings critically ill and hospitalized children unique, immersive virtual reality experiences based on Star Wars. Los Angeles partners Henry Fields and former San Francisco partner Sara Terheggen, along with Palo Alto associates Emiko Kurotsu and Hila Cohen, led that matter. Our pro bono work remains global and without borders. In China, a team of lawyers from our Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong offices collaborated to help the U.S.-based nonprofit Pacific Environment register an office in China under the new requirements imposed by China’s recently enacted Overseas NGO Management Law, a law that has created considerable uncertainty for international NGOs operating in China. Beijing partner Sherry Yin led the firm’s first project under this new law, with support from Beijing associate Hao Zhang, Shanghai senior consultant Liwen Zhang, and Hong Kong associate Gary Zeng. Meanwhile, in Japan, a Tokyo- based team composed of partners Mitsutoshi Uchida and Kenji Hosokawa, and associates Naoyuki Fukuda and Yuhki Asano, is providing structuring and related advice to General Incorporated Association C4 to develop a social impact bond market in Japan. Its purpose is to connect interested investors with NGOs and social entrepreneurs that are tackling social challenges such as regional poverty, the rights of immigrants, and the lack of support for aging communities. Our London office remains very active in these dimensions of the pro bono landscape, representing numerous and diverse interests within the nonprofit and social entrepreneur space. Senior counsel Howard Morris led a professional development workshop for more than 70 lawyers sponsored by the East Africa Law Society and Advocates for International Development in Kigali, Rwanda. The workshop focused on the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human ADVANCING THE OBJECTIVES OF NONPROFITS AND SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS