Commercial Lease Legal Clinic
Communities Rise with the support of the City of Seattle Office of Economic Development is hosting a FREE legal clinic for nonprofits and small businesses who have commercial lease related legal matters! In recent years, we have had increasing requests for lease related legal help from low-income business owners and nonprofits, particularly BIPOC-led businesses and organizations. These requests often come near the end of the year at an especially vulnerable time. We hope a commercial lease legal clinic held in December can help support those needs.
Eligible nonprofits and small business are provided with a free 1 hour virtual meeting with an attorney to help address their commercial lease related legal matters. The appointments are available at various times during the days of Monday December 4th to Friday December 15th.
Eligibility requirements:
This clinic serves Washington state based small businesses and non-profits that meet income eligibility requirements.
Eligible matters include such issues as: commercial lease review, general advice around commercial lease negotiation, questions about options when facing eviction
This clinic is not able to serve businesses and nonprofits who are already involved in court proceedings related to their lease--for example if your landlord has already filed a court action against you. The reason is that then business or nonprofit is subject to court evidence rules that clinic attorneys are not qualified to handle.
How To Request A Virtual Appointment With An Attorney:
Send an email to the following email address smallbiz@communities-rise.org with “Commercial Lease Clinic” as the subject line.
In the email, please include some information about the commercial lease support you are seeking.
If your legal need is a good fit for the Commercial Lease clinic, Communities Rise staff will ask you to complete a form to complete and email a copy of your lease.
Upon receiving the completed form, Communities Rise staff will review your application and reach out about next steps.
Please note that the last day to request an appointment with an attorney for the Commercial Lease clinic is Monday, December 11.
The Commercial Lease clinic has a limited number of appointments available; while we are trying to make sufficient appointments available to meet client need, we cannot guarantee we will be able to serve all applicants.
Please direct any questions about the Commercial Lease clinic to smallbiz@communities-rise.org. More information is available at the Commercial Lease Clinic webpage.
