When the New Haven-based law firm Wiggin and Dana launched a program last July to jump-start the success of minority-owned businesses, it pledged to provide $10 million in free legal services over 10 years.
Since then, the law firm said the program, called Wiggin Opportunity Initiative, has met its first-year goal, providing more than 100 minority-owned businesses around the country with more than $1 million in free legal assistance.
Now, it is looking for more partners to help spread the word about the effort and more minority-owned business owners who need legal help in order to grow their venture.
“WOI was created in response to the social justice movement of 2020, but we have built an actionable program that will be sustainable over the next decade,” Wiggin and Dana partner Mark Kaduboski said in a statement. “We will continue with WOI with our original mission in mind.”
Wiggin and Dana said its attorneys, through the program, have assisted businesses in the areas of employment, real estate, intellectual property, privacy, commercial arrangements, corporate government, financing and disputes.
Current Connecticut partners include the Women’s Business Development Council, the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale, and the Connecticut NAACP.
Connecticut NAACP President Scot Esdaile said in a statement that the partnership has helped strengthen its One Million Jobs Campaign for the Formerly Incarcerated, which provides job training and networking to help keep formerly incarcerated people from returning to prison.
A spokeswoman for the law firm said Wiggin and Dana is representing the CT NAACP on various aspects of the jobs campaign, while also working with the organization to identify minority-owned businesses in the state that might benefit from WOI.
“When we learned about the Wiggin Opportunity Initiative, we knew our community could benefit from this counsel,” Esdaile said.
Courtroom5, a North Carolina minority-owned startup that helps people without attorneys represent themselves in civil cases, said Wiggin and Dana attorneys helped the company draft contract templates and privacy policies, manage their capital structure and “resolve a thorny dispute with a key vendor.”
“They’ve been a go-to resource for legal matters we can’t afford to get wrong,” company CEO Sonja Ebron said in a statement.
Closer to home, Lizbeth Marquez, who owns Connecticut-based natural hair care startup Locks for Liz, tapped WOI for free legal help on two patent applications for her products.
Eligible businesses must be minority-owned and unable to afford legal services.
Wiggin and Dana has Connecticut offices in New Haven, Hartford and Stamford as well as locations in New York, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Palm Beach, Florida.
To learn more about becoming a strategic partner with WOI or if you are a minority owned business interested in free legal services, contact John Doroghazi at jdoroghazi@wiggin.com.
Contact Natalie Missakian at news@newhavenbiz.com
