LegalCORPS

At LegalCORPS, we’re passionate about assisting low-income small businesses, inventors, and nonprofit organizations by connecting them with free, high quality legal services from volunteer lawyers. We serve over 1,800 clients throughout Minnesota every year through our 600+ volunteer attorneys.

Small business owners stabilize their communities when they employ local workers, provide goods and services that residents would otherwise need to access elsewhere, and are able to support other small businesses located with their community. This contributes to the stability of our cultural corridors as they survive and thrive with a strong small business and community organizational presence. As demand for services increases, now, more than ever, we need your help to serve the small businesses, inventors, entrepreneurs and nonprofit organizations that are the fabric of our communities. Please join us and make your donation today. 

To increase access to the justice system, LegalCORPS assists entrepreneurs, small businesses, inventors, and nonprofits, especially those that strengthen Minnesota’s low-income communities, by providing individuals and organizations with business law services they could not otherwise afford. As Minnesota's only business legal aid organization, LegalCORPS programs empower individuals and families to build noble legacies for generations to come. 

We offer brief advice clinics, educational workshops, and provide full-representation assistance through volunteer business and patent lawyers.  

Our Entrepreneurs of Color Program is designed to better serve immigrants and people of color by partnering with community-based, culturally specific economic development organizations. The African Development Center is an example of one such partnership:
  Some examples of the assistance LegalCORPS provides include:

Small Businesses:

• A small business proprietor that produced and sold fermented hot sauce, sauerkraut and curtido received assistance from a volunteer attorney in terminating his business partnership while still protecting his interests in the company.
• The owner of a training gym (think American Ninja Warrior) received a review of his business expansion plan and guidance on the legal aspects of franchising his business model.
• Three volunteer attorneys assisted a client trademark both the name of his business and name of his patented creation, which is a strap that functions as a flip-flop restraint. Trademark registration allows the client to take advantage of additional resources for improving sales and protecting himself.

Inventors:

• The inventor of a water bottle specialty cleaning sponge received assistance with filing his patent application. Not only was the attorney helpful with explaining all that was needed but the inventor felt the education received from the attorney allowed him to better represent his innovation. The assistance eliminated the burden of risk when talking with other resources while trying to expand the business. 
• An inventor that filed a patent application for a specialty face mask pro se was allowed into expedited examination resulting from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). The client received an Office Action from the USPTO examiner and requested our assistance for a patent attorney to help with the process. A patent attorney stepped in and completed the prosecution phase which resulted in a patent allowance.

 Nonprofits:

• A local nonprofit organization that supports people, programs and policies that make life better for abused and neglected children received a review of the agreement it uses with independent contractors and was provided guidance on volunteer policies.
• A volunteer helped fledgling group whose mission is to help Minnesota and Wisconsin shift away from factory farming and towards humane and sustainable food and farms to incorporate their organization in the State of Minnesota, draft bylaws, and file IRS Form 1023 which has granted them 501(c)(3) status.

Donor support is essential to helping LegalCORPS connect volunteer lawyers with clients striving to achieve a real stake in the American dream, and with those working to improve their communities through nonprofits. Thank you for your support!