Lawyers play a critical role in designing, implementing, and advancing models by which economic and social activity are conducted globally. The Grunin Center administers the award of an annual Grunin Prize for Law and Social Entrepreneurship to recognize 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.
This year the Grunin Prize once again attracted nominations from across the globe that are representative of the extraordinary and expanding legal community of practice that is emerging in these fields. Meet the 2022 winner and finalists below
2022 Grunin Prize Winner
The Nature Conservancy - Blue Bonds for Ocean Conservation Program
Nominated legal team: Stephen Valdes-Robles, Senior Attorney, TNC
Supporting legal teams: Antonia Stolper, Counsel to TNC, Shearman & Sterling; Cynthia Urda Kassis, Counsel to TNC, Shearman & Sterling; Andrea Hwang, Counsel to TNC, Ropes & Gray; Christina Houston, Delaware Counsel to TNC, DLA Piper; Andrew Marshalleck, Belize Counsel to TNC, Barrow & Co; Werner Ahlers, Counsel to Belize, Sullivan & Cromwell; Maurice Blanco, Counsel to Citigroup as advisor to Belize, Davis Polk & Wardwell; Jonathan Maizel, Assistant General Counsel, United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC); Jamie Head, Counsel to DFC, Hunton Andrews Kurth; Christine Steenman, Counsel to Credit Suisse, Allen & Overy; Thomas Laryea, Counsel to the Bondholders Committee, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; Wanda Ebanks, Cayman Islands Counsel, Maples & Calder.
The project: Despite the ocean contributing an estimated US$3 trillion per year to global GDP, marine conservation is one of the most underfunded UN Sustainable Development Goals. Tackling that challenge, in November 2021, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Government of Belize (Belize) closed the world’s largest debt refinancing for ocean conservation to date. The US$ 364 million debt conversion reduced Belize’s debt by 12 percent of GDP, created long-term sustainable financing of approximately US$ 4 million annually for conservation, and locked in commitment to protect 30% of Belize’s ocean, in addition to a range of other conservation measures.
2022 Grunin Prize Finalists
McDermott Will & Emery - Education Outcomes Fund (EOF)
Nominated legal teams: Ranajoy Basu, Partner, McDermott Will & Emery UK LLP; Priya Taneja, Counsel, McDermott Will & Emery UK LLP
Supporting legal teams: Peter Mason, former global General Counsel, UNICEF; Maria Mkandawire, senior legal affairs specialist, UNICEF; Matt Hoisington, legal affairs specialist, UNICEF
The project: Situations ranging from wartime destruction to the COVID-19 pandemic interrupt children’s learning, which can lead to higher levels of illiteracy and economic deterioration. To address acute global education needs, empower educators to deliver results, and improve learning outcomes for children around the world, the Education Outcomes Fund (EOF) moved to operate as an independent trust hosted by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The innovative partnership provides an ambitious new mechanism for large-scale social financing focused on children’s education. McDermott Will & Emery’s Impact Finance Practice advised EOF and UNICEF on setting up a joint structure, which involved aligning the outcomes-based model in relation to EOF’s existing educational programs in various jurisdictions and ensuring the contractual structure conformed to the fund located within UNICEF. The partnership with McDermott Will & Emery has allowed EOF to operate as an independent trust fund hosted by UNICEF, which provides fund management, legal, procurement, and administrative services to EOF.
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe - The Common Future Character-Based Lending Fund (the “CBL Fund”)
Nominated legal team: Walter Alarkon, Senior Associate, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; Perry Teicher, Impact Finance Counsel, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; Quinn Moss, Partner, Co-Head of Private Investment Funds & Impact Finance Steering Committee, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.
The project: The Common Future Character-Based Lending Fund (the “CBL Fund”) is an US$ 800,000 financing vehicle which provides financing to BIPOC entrepreneurs via three entrepreneurship support organizations (each an “ESO”), nonprofit networks which have each developed targeted character-based lending processes and underwriting criteria. These ESOs are well-embedded in their communities and are equipped to both make character-based judgements about an entrepreneur’s readiness to receive a loan and to understand the needs of local BIPOC businesses. This character-based underwriting strategy in effect reverses the traditional approach to lending – instead of a distant, abstracted financial institution allocating capital downwards based on metrics which disadvantage BIPOC communities, the CBL Fund follows a bottom-up approach, enabling trusted organizations within the community to create their own underwriting criteria and refer upward those applicants who fit the requirements. The loans themselves are unsecured, low-interest (1-3%), and have long amortization periods, making them much better fits for these communities than traditional loans. These character-based loans are intended to act as “patient capital”, focused more on cultivating social good than on generating immediate financial return, and allowing BIPOC entrepreneurs with fewer resources a chance at growth.
2022 Judging Panel
The screening panel is composed of an internal prize committee that selects the finalists.
The final judging panel is composed of NYU Law representatives and industry experts who select the Grunin Prize winner based on the submission materials, references, and a final interview.
Meet the Judging Panel below:
Deborah K. Burand
Deborah Burand is a Professor of Clinical Law at NYU Law, where she directs the International Transactions Clinic and is Faculty Co-Director of the Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship. She writes and lectures on issues related to international finance, microfinance and microfranchise, impact investing, and social finance innovations such as social impact bonds, social entrepreneurship, and developing sustainable businesses at the base of the economic pyramid.
During 2010-2011, Burand served as general counsel to the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the development finance institution of the United States. Earlier in her career, she worked in the environmental sector (Conservation International), microfinance sector (FINCA International and Grameen Foundation), and US government (Federal Reserve Board and Department of the Treasury). She also has worked in private practice at a global law firm, where, among other things, she supported, on a pro bono basis, the development of the world’s first debt-for-nature swap.
Burand is a member of the board and Investment Committee of the MicroBuild Fund, an impact investment fund sponsored by Habitat for Humanity International. She is an advisor to the Linked Foundation and Social Sector Franchise Initiative. She co-founded the Impact Investing Legal Working Group (IILWG) and Women Advancing Microfinance (WAM) International.
Burand received her BA from DePauw University cum laude, and a joint degree, JD/MSFS with honors, from Georgetown University.
Les
lie Cornell
Leslie Cornell is a Vice President of Policy and Deputy General Counsel at Social Finance, Inc, a national impact finance nonprofit, where she advises on sourcing and structuring innovative, first-of-their-kind impact finance transactions to support results-focused social programs across various issue areas including homelessness, workforce development and criminal justice.
Leslie advises cross-functional project teams across a wide range of transactions including complex debt financings, equity impact investments, private funds, fund of funds and other pooled investment vehicles. Her work supports the development of innovative financing strategies with state and local governments, institutional and philanthropic investors, and nonprofit service providers that directly and measurably improve the lives of those in need. Leslie’s impact finance portfolio includes Social Impact Bonds, Career Impact Bonds, the Google Career Certificate Fund and the DREAMers Graduate Loan Program, a first-of-its-kind impact investment fund that provides loans to DACA and TPS recipients who want to pursue professional degrees but can’t access public loan programs due to their immigration statuses.
Leslie is also part of the Social Finance legal team that was awarded the 2019 Grunin Prize by the New York University School of Law’s Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship.
Prior to Social Finance, Leslie was a public finance attorney, serving as bond counsel, underwriter’s counsel and borrower’s counsel for a variety of public finance transactions, most notably tax-exempt conduit bond issuances for not-for-profit universities, hospitals, health care systems, and cultural institutions. During the Obama Administration, Leslie worked in the press office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, U.S. House of Representatives.
Leslie holds a B.S. in Media Arts and Sciences and an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was a Civic Leadership Fellow and President of the Illini Union Board. She is a cum laude graduate of Loyola University Chicago School of Law, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Consumer Law Review.
David A. Goldstein
David Goldstein concentrates his practice in affordable housing development, real estate and community development, nonprofit formation and governance, and corporate formation and governance.
As lead counsel with deep experience in structuring and advising joint ventures and complex affordable housing transactions involving numerous federal, state, and city housing and finance programs, David played a key role in the formation and early success of the award-winning Joint Ownership Entity (JOE NYC) program. He continues providing legal expertise as JOE NYC pursues additional affordable housing projects throughout the city. He is also among the members of the New York Advisory Board for the Corporation for Supportive Housing.
David has represented limited equity cooperatives, HDFC co-ops, and tenant associations in litigation and general corporate issues.
Beyond his active law practice, David regularly conducts workshops on numerous legal topics, including: affordable housing finance and development, negotiating and structuring joint ventures, Year 15 legal issues for low-income housing tax credit projects, and cooperative law. He has lectured and led workshops for numerous organizations, including the Enterprise Foundation, the Supportive Housing Network of New York (SHNNY), the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD), New York State Association for Affordable Housing (NYSAFAH), the New York City Bar Association, LORMAN Education Services, a continuing legal education provider, and Urban Homesteaders Assistance Board (UHAB).
Prior to entering private practice, David worked at Southern Tier Legal Services in Bath, New York and Queens Legal Services as a litigator representing tenants in eviction proceedings. While at Southern Tier Legal Services, David led the first independent study of the homeless population in Steuben County, NY.
David earned his J.D. from Syracuse University College of Law and an undergraduate degree from The George Washington University.
Jay Grunin
Jay Grunin is Co-Founder and Chairman, Jay & Linda Grunin Foundation. Jay graduated from Brooklyn College (with honors) in 1964, and from NYU School of Law in 1967, where he was an Editor of the Law Review and where he met his future wife and business partner. After a brief exposure to academia –as Research Assistant to an NYU Law professor teaching a seminar on legislative history–, as well as a brief stint in Big Law in New York, followed by a one year Appellate Division clerkship in New Jersey, Jay, who would never have to rue about the road not taken, opted to then take the advice of his lawyer-wife who implored him to “go south young man, go south”. And so Jay and Linda “hitched on to the second wagon train” and landed in a then small town on the Central Jersey Shore called Toms River.
After a few years, Jay and Linda decided to open up their own small “mom and pop” law firm. In the 1970s, as Ocean County became one of the fastest growing counties in the entire United States, Jay and Linda’s law practice flourished. At the same time, Jay and Linda expanded their business interests to include real estate and other investments.
In the 1990s, the Grunins dissolved their law practice so as to concentrate full time on their greatest passions, business investments and philanthropy. In 2013 their philanthropic endeavors were formalized with the creation of the Jay and Linda Grunin Foundation.
Jonathan Ng
Jonathan has experience working in the government, NGO, private and academic sectors. He currently serves as an Attorney Advisor within the USAID Office of the General Counsel covering the Office of Private Capital and Microenterprise (PCM) and the Education Office, both within the Bureau for Economic Growth, Education and Environment (E3). Through the PCM office, Mr. Ng provides overall legal and policy guidance for Agency initiatives related to the Agency’s recent launch of its new private sector engagement (PSE) policy. He also serves on USAID’s Credit Review Board, the Agency’s internal risk review committee for all loan guarantees issued through the USAID Development Credit Authority. Prior to joining USAID, Mr. Ng was the first general counsel of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, an international NGO known for starting the modern social entrepreneurship movement. Mr. Ng began his legal career in New York at White & Case LLP in its energy, infrastructure and project finance group. In addition to his work at USAID, Mr. Ng is currently an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University Law Center, where he co-teaches a course on law and social entrepreneurship.
Helen Scott
Helen Scott is Professor of Law and the founder and co-director of the Mitchell Jacobson Leadership Program in Law and Business at New York University School of Law, as well as Faculty Co-Director of the Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship. In that capacity, she has participated in the development of innovative Law and Business courses, including Investing in Microfinance, Law & Business of Corporate Governance, and Professional Responsibility in Law and Business. Scott oversees the competitive Leadership Scholars program, and runs the capstone seminar for the program, Law and Business Projects. She has been a member of the NYU School of Law faculty since 1982 and teaches a wide variety of business law courses, including the basic Contracts and Corporations courses.
Scott currently serves on the Board of Directors of IEX LLC, the newly launched stock exchange. From 1999 to 2004, Scott co-chaired the Listing and Hearing Review Council of the NASDAQ Stock Market, an independent advisory committee to the board of directors, with primary responsibility for formulating and recommending corporate governance and quantitative listing standards for that market.
In 1997, Scott received the Legal Advocate of the Year award from the US Small Business Administration in recognition of her participation in the development of the Angel Capital Electronic Network (ACE-Net) project to increase financing available to early-stage entrepreneurial enterprises. Before joining the Law School faculty, Scott practiced law in Washington, DC, and New York.