Conference on Legal issues in Social Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing in the US and Beyond

The conference on Legal issues in Social Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing in the US and Beyond, organised by the Impact Investing Legal Working Group and the newly launched Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship, was held at the NYU School of Law between 23 and 24 May 2017. The conference was a huge success and had 250 participants.

Five main themes were addressed:

• Growing the global community of lawyers working in the field of social entrepreneurship and impact investing
• Planning for market uncertainty when investing in social enterprises or managing social enterprises
• Aggregating capital for impact investing
• Creating and documenting new impact investment products
• Governing impact investment funds and social enterprises

Three ESELA Board Members attended and participated in the conference.

Alissa Pelatan, ESELA Board Member, spoke on two panels. The first panel was about “Growing the global community of lawyers working in the field of social entrepreneurship and impact investing”, where she shared her experience as a lawyer with a Social Entrepreneurship Practice in France. She also spoke on the panel “Governing impact investment funds and social enterprises” which explored the differences between the governance of social or mission-related enterprises and regular enterprises, as well as best practice for governance.

Alissa and fellow ESELA board member Roberto Randazzo, co-led a workshop on “Growing the Legal Community of Practice Beyond the United States”.

Julie Wynne, ESELA Board Member, spoke about the cross-border issues in structuring transactions and the geopolitical climate for impact investing.

For more information, please click here.