The Grunin Prize
Lawyers play a critical role in designing, implementing, and advancing models by which economic and social activity are conducted globally. The Grunin Prize recognizes the variety and impact of lawyers’ participation in the ways in which business is increasingly advancing the goals of sustainability and human development.
The Grunin Prize aims to reward the innovation, replicability and/or scalability, and potential impact of projects and solutions developed by lawyers to advance the fields of social entrepreneurship and impact investing. The Grunin Prize may be awarded based on inputs, such as new uses of old laws or reframing of the conceptual framework surrounding the law, or outputs, such as the development of a new legal structure, metrics or organizational design.
The Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship is made possible through a generous endowment from NYU School of Law graduates Jay Grunin ’67 and Linda Kalmanowitz Grunin ’67, and the Jay and Linda Grunin Foundation. Jay and Linda have dedicated their philanthropic endeavors to investing in innovative projects that have measurable impacts creating meaningful, transformative change.
2018 Grunin Prize Winner
Partner, Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP
2018 Grunin Prize Design Challenge Winner
NYU School of Law
At NYU Law, Alissa is focusing on the intersections of business and human rights law. She is an IILJ Scholar and an executive editor of the Journal of Legislation and Public Policy. She also served as 2017–18 co-president of Law Women. During her 2L summer, she traveled to Jordan as an NYU International Law and Human Rights Fellow to work in refugee status deter- mination at UNHCR. She currently is a summer associate at Foley Hoag. Prior to law school, Alissa worked as a professional ballet and contemporary dancer and teacher. She trained at The Ailey School and taught in Boston Ballet’s out- reach program and in a juvenile detention center. She also worked in health care policy and as a human rights fellow for US Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts. Her volunteer work with torture survivors applying for asylum in the US ultimately inspired her to pursue the law. She graduated cum laude from Harvard College in 2007, with a concentration in psychology and a certificate in global health and health policy.
2018 Grunin Prize Finalists
Partner, Reed Smith
Ranajoy Basu is widely recognized as one of the leading lawyers in cross-border social impact finance structures, including social and development impact bonds, renewable energy, and “green” structured finance transactions. Basu launched the firm’s Social Impact Finance Group and has worked on innovative financial inclusion projects such as the Edu- cate Girls bond, the first development impact bond of its kind. Reed Smith advised Instiglio, a nonprofit focused on international development, on a pro bono basis. The social impact bond raised funds for Educate Girls, a non- governmental organization (NGO) that supports girls in schools and works to improve learning outcomes for more than 20,000 children in remote parts of Rajasthan, India. The UBS Optimus Foundation will invest $238,000 in Educate Girls. The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) will pay for social outcomes achieved by the program.
Partner, Bates Wells Braithwaite
Luke Fletcher is a partner at the law firm Bates Wells Braithwaite in the UK. He advises a wide range of clients pursuing profit with purpose in the UK and abroad. Clients range from international NGOs, charities, govern- ments, major corporates, and investment banks, to purpose-driven businesses, impact investors, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists. Fletcher has worked on many of the most significant developments in the growing impact econ- omy, including advising the European Commission on the law and regulation of social enterprise across Europe, working with the UK government on the design of social investment tax relief, creating official model documents and guidance on social impact bonds, and designing and launching Purposely, a digital toolkit to help businesses embed purpose in different ways. He is the president of the European Social Enterprise Law Association.
Assistant General Counsel, ACCION
Jessica Galimberti is assistant general counsel at Accion, a global nonprofit working to advance financial inclusion. She has more than 11 years of experience providing legal advice and support to a range of nonprofit, for-profit, and government actors. Jessica’s responsibilities at Accion include pro- viding legal advice on cross-border corporate, transactional, and compliance matters. She also works closely with financial inclusion and regulatory experts to develop best-practice resources and conduct trainings to promote strong financial consumer protection laws and regulations and chairs the Partnership for Responsible Financial Inclusion’s Consumer Protection and Regulatory Engagement working group.
Prior to joining Accion, Jessica served as in-house counsel for a passport and ID solutions provider, where she advised management and staff on international contracting, compliance, and corporate restructuring matters. She also assisted in the prosecution of consumer and securities fraud class action cases before law school.
Jessica earned her JD from Boston College Law School and her BA, cum laude, in political science and business studies from New York University. She is admitted to practice in New York and Massachusetts.
New Perimeter is a nonprofit organization established by global law firm DLA Piper to provide long-term pro bono legal assistance in underserved regions around the world to support access to justice, social and economic development, and sound legal institutions. Founded in 2005 as a result of the firm’s commitment to support legal advancement worldwide, New Perimeter’s vision is to harness the skills and talents of DLA Piper lawyers to further a more just world for all.
Formed in 2011, the Partnership for Responsible Financial Inclusion is a collaborative effort of leading international organizations. Harnessing the power of the CEOs and their senior managers, the PRFI advocates for responsible financial services and seeks catalytic opportunities to accelerate financial access to the unserved through 260 partners in 87 countries.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Co-founder and CEO, Economic Innovation Group
Steve Glickman is the co-founder and chief executive officer of the Economic Innovation Group (EIG), a bipartisan, nonprofit research, policy, and advocacy organization. It is focused on revitalizing distressed communities through private investment and improved access to capital, supporting entrepreneur- ship and the growth of new businesses, and championing a more innovative US economy.
Glickman is also an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University, where he teaches economic diplomacy and international trade in the masters program for the School of Foreign Service. He sits on the board of governors at Georgetown University and is a member of the board of directors of NewDEAL, a national network of progressive state and local elected leaders. Glickman served in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2013, most recently as a senior economic advisor at the White House, where he focused on interna- tional trade and investment, financing, manufacturing, and small business pol- icies for the National Economic Council and National Security Council. Prior to that, he served as deputy associate counsel at the White House and chief of staff for the US and Foreign Commercial Service at the Department of Commerce.
He received his BA and MA in American government from Georgetown University, his JD from Columbia Law School, and his LLM from the London School of Economics. He is a Council on Foreign Relations term member, Atlantic Council millennium fellow, and Truman National Security fellow.
JD/MBA candidate, Brigham Young University
Nash spent the past six months interning with a venture fund and is currently a summer associate with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto, California. She hopes to begin her career in corporate transactional law.