Sharing Law
Law for sharing, cooperation, and thriving communities.
Sharing Law supports legal approaches to living together in thriving, interactive communities — helping people share resources, cooperate, and build more sustainable communities.
WHAT IS SHARING LAW?
What do you call a lawyer who helps people share, cooperate, barter, foster local economies, and build sustainable communities?
Attorney Janelle Orsi calls it Sharing Law and was among the first to name and champion it as its own field of practice.
Sharing Law extends traditional transactional legal skills into emerging ways of living and organizing — from cooperatives and community currencies to cohousing, time banks, crowdfunding, and community-supported agriculture.
Sharing Resources
Cooperation
Sustainability
Local Economies
MEET LYNNE
A Real-Life Example of Sharing Law
Imagine Lynne. She shares car ownership with two neighbors, belongs to a cooperative grocery, grows and sells vegetables on an empty lot, finances a landscaping business through microloans from friends and family, barters odd jobs for goods and services, and owns a small share of a retreat center through sweat equity.
Lynne has built an affordable, connected life almost entirely outside the traditional financial grid.
But how does she explain all of this to the IRS, her insurance company, and the regulatory systems built around conventional ideas of ownership and employment?
This is where Sharing Law can help.
A NEW LEGAL VOCABULARY FOR A SHARED ECONOMY
Sharing Law addresses forms of cooperation that don’t always fit neatly into traditional legal categories.
- Bartering
- Cooperatives
- Buying Clubs
- Community Currencies
- Time Banks
- Microlending
- Crowdfunding
- Community-Supported Agriculture
- Cohousing
- Intentional Communities
New Ways of Thinking
About Exchange
HOW SHARING LAW HELPS
Contrary to the popular image of lawyers as courtroom litigators, roughly half of lawyers work as transactional lawyers — negotiating and structuring the contracts behind business deals, real estate, loans, and more.
Sharing Law extends that transactional skill set into new ways of living and organizing.
Sharing lawyers can help clients navigate contracts, insurance, taxes, regulation, ownership, employment, nonprofit/for-profit structures, and other legal questions created by collaborative models.
Sharing can take many forms:
- Shares car ownership with two neighbors
- Belongs to a cooperative grocery
- Grows and sells vegetables on an empty lot
- Shares car ownership with two neighbors
- Finances a business through microloans
- Barters goods and services
- Owns a share of a retreat center through sweat equity
“I've always felt like people shouldn't have to struggle, and life should be fun.” Janelle Orsi is the founder of Sustainable Economies Law Center.