Nearly a decade ago, Sidley began working with Cosecha, a Nicaragua-based company that supplies organic and all-natural specialty foods and ingredients to the international food industry while benefiting smallholder farmers and their communities. Sidley has supported Cosecha in building more efficient legal structures that enable the scalability behind their commercial efforts in Central America. Over the years, this partnership has continued to go broader and deeper, from commercial contracts that help keep Cosecha in line with international standards, to mitigating risk with premium markets in Europe and the United States. With these foundations in place, Cosecha has expanded rapidly and is now positioned to serve the more than 3 million rural farmers in Central America seeking to transition to regenerative agriculture. For every US$1 invested, Cosecha’s model generates an average return of $8.31, reflected in increased household income and asset growth within 24 months, said Pilar Martinez, co-founder and director of Cosecha.
“We are redefining regenerative agriculture from an elite standard into a practical, scalable system that lifts farmer incomes and restores ecosystems,” said Ms. Martinez.
With over 13 years of experience, Cosecha is the leading organization in Central America working at scale with small farmers integrating regenerative agriculture and direct market access. The US$30B regenerative organic agriculture market is vastly underserved, Ms. Martinez said, covering only 1.6% of global farmland. By pioneering income-generating systems like coffee-macadamia agroforestry, Cosecha is increasing the global supply of regenerative agriculture currently reaching more than 52,000 household members, transforming over 9,100 hectares through a combination of intensive in-person technical assistance and strategic end-market partnerships. With smartphone penetration exceeding 63% in these rural areas, Ms. Martinez said, Cosecha’s customized AI-enabled tools provide support beyond the limits of traditional extension services.
“Cosecha’s hybrid extension model, blending human training with AI-powered tools, has increased incomes by 72%, thus generating over $34 million in new income, proving that our localized strategies translate directly into large-scale economic resilience across Central America,” said Ms. Martinez.
Sidley has worked with the Global Shea Alliance (GSA) since 2012, providing strategic policy and regulatory advisory support across multiple jurisdictions, helping GSA assess how evolving food, trade, sustainability, and value-addition policies impact the shea sector. This has included legal analyses, policy briefs, white papers, and guidance to inform advocacy positioning. Sidley also supported the development of policy materials and presented at GSA’s 2025 European conference, which convened 87 industry stakeholders.
“Sidley’s work has directly supported GSA’s need to expand global utilization of shea while equipping members with clarity on regulatory requirements in current and prospective markets,” said Olawunmi Osholake, Deputy Managing Director of the Global Shea Alliance.
“Sidley’s support has strengthened the Sustainability and Promotion pillar of GSA’s mission by helping safeguard and expand market access for shea while also building our members’ capacity to understand and navigate evolving ESG regulatory disclosure requirements in the EU and U.S.,” Ms. Osholake said. “By clarifying regulatory risks and opportunities, supporting evidence-based advocacy, and advising on positioning within shifting policy environments, Sidley has enabled GSA to proactively engage policymakers and protect the industry’s long-term growth.” This directly advances GSA’s goal of increasing global utilization of shea while reinforcing quality and sustainability standards.
Currently, GSA is working with Sidley to analyze the impact of significant policy shifts across West Africa, the region that dominates global shea exports, where leading producing countries have introduced measures restricting or banning the export of raw kernels in favor of domestic value addition. These regulatory shifts have implications for over 4 million women engaged in shea collection and primary processing. GSA is assessing how these changes affect local producers, particularly women’s cooperatives, as well as regional trade flows and international markets, to better understand the broader industry impact and use this analysis to inform GSA’s strategic positioning and next steps, clarifying the role GSA should play in navigating and shaping this evolving landscape.
The findings will culminate in a white paper to be presented at the Shea 2026 Global Conference, where GSA aims to encourage constructive policy dialogue and explore opportunities for greater alignment and harmonization in ways that positively support market activity and sector sustainability.
“Our long-standing partnership with Sidley has provided GSA with credible, high-level legal insight that a trade association of our size would not typically have direct access to,” said Ms. Osholake. “Over time, the collaboration has evolved from reactive legal support to a more strategic, forward-looking partnership that strengthens GSA’s institutional capacity to engage confidently and constructively in global policy discussions.”
One Acre Fund is a nonprofit organization that provides smallholder farmers in East Africa with asset-based financing and agriculture training services to reduce hunger and poverty. As the organization expanded its footprint, they enlisted Sidley to advise on a variety of matters, and the relationship has been going strong ever since.
“You could almost ask what Sidley hasn’t provided to us over the years,” said John Lindner, General Counsel of One Acre Fund. “We have received advice on British charitable registration, assistance with work in the carbon credit sector and building contracts to support that.” One Acre Fund’s Investor Relations team has worked extensively with Sidley on a number of complex loan agreements. Sidley has also provided advice around intellectual property questions that have come up over the years. In addition to that, Sidley has helped with document requests, governmental filings, and advising on regulatory compliance.
“Sidley has helped us address complicated legal issues, particularly around fundraising and corporate structure, that have enabled strong growth in our countries of operation, meeting revenue targets, and ultimately translating these gains into better livelihoods and harvests for our clients,” said Mr. Lindner.
One Acre Fund is working on a new corporate structure to help expand its services to clients and further its mission, including carbon trading, farmer insurance, and investments in local businesses with impact-focused missions. All of these objectives work in service to One Acre Fund’s 2030 goal to serve 10 million farmers.
“Sidley has been very helpful, and everyone we’ve worked with has taken time out of their busy schedules to support our requests. You always feel like Sidley attorneys are curious about your organization, committed to delivering the best possible results for pro bono clients, and genuinely a pleasure to work with,” Mr. Lindner said.
Since 2017, Sidley and the International Trade Centre (ITC) SheTrades Initiative have worked together to reduce the legal and regulatory barriers that impede the participation of women-led businesses in trade. In 2025, which marked the tenth anniversary of ITC SheTrades, the partnership focused on technical assistance and development of practical materials to support women entrepreneurs. ITC SheTrades joined with Sidley and other partners to deliver a virtual masterclass series, which explored emerging trade trends, digital transformation, sustainability, regulatory compliance, and export readiness. Sidley led a high-impact session entitled “Legal Essentials for Cross-Border Trade,” which reached 1,320 participants from 78 countries.
Sidley also participated in a workshop in Ghana aimed at delivering technical support under the ITC SheTrades and UPS Women Exporters Programme, in collaboration with the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) and the Embassy of Switzerland. The workshop convened 219 participants, including small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), youth entrepreneurs, and ecosystem stakeholders. Sidley delivered a session on “Demystifying Trade,” offering practical guidance on export requirements for EU markets.
A flagship achievement of the partnership in 2025 was the development of Export Handbooks for Ghanaian women-led businesses in the cosmetics sector, with a focus on the EU, UK, and U.S. markets. These guides provide step-by-step legal and regulatory guidance, translating complex frameworks into accessible, actionable information tailored to SMEs. Sidley contributed both to the technical drafting of the handbooks and to their in-person launch alongside GEPA, ITC, and the Embassy of Switzerland in Ghana.
“By distilling complex market requirements into accessible guidance tailored to entrepreneurs, this initiative demonstrates the power of pairing global legal advice with strong on-the-ground delivery,” said Kritee Sharma, Partnerships Lead – ITC SheTrades. “Through this collaboration, entrepreneurs are better equipped to navigate regulatory requirements, accelerate their entry into international markets, and move from awareness to action — ultimately positioning themselves to compete and succeed globally.”
Looking ahead, ITC SheTrades aims to scale its joint capacity-building initiatives — such as webinars, masterclasses, and technical workshops — to address increasingly complex regulatory, digital, and cross-border trade environments. Additionally, the initiative aims to expand support for women-led businesses in priority sectors and markets, building on the successful Ghana export handbook model.
“At its core, this partnership is grounded in a shared commitment to championing SMEs and women entrepreneurs,” Ms. Sharma said. “It combines ITC’s deep ecosystem knowledge and understanding of SME needs with Sidley’s world-class expertise in international trade law. Together, we can translate complex trade and regulatory frameworks into clear, practical insights — transforming highly technical knowledge into tools, trainings, and guidance that entrepreneurs can immediately apply.”
In 2025, our global offices contributed substantially to pro bono work in a variety of impactful ways.
Our London office devoted more than 9,400 hours to assist nearly 90 individuals under the firm’s access to justice projects, which focus on serving people with disabilities, asylum seekers and refugees, women, and children. We continued to support the most vulnerable in society by helping mothers in prison to see their children and by representing individuals in appeals to obtain disability benefits. Through our charities and nonprofits program, we provided over 50 organizations with free legal advice and support, enabling them to focus on their important work of delivering essential public services to those in need.
Our Brussels, Geneva, and Munich offices contributed more than 800 hours to pro bono matters and continued to make important strides on behalf of clients who we represent through the firm’s Emerging Enterprises Program and Trade for Development Initiative.
Our Asia Pacific offices dedicated more than 190 hours to pro bono matters and continue to seek new opportunities to provide pro bono support to our global communities.
We are proud to partner with Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit to help children and young people apply for British citizenship. In 2025, we filed 3 applications, and 2 clients were successfully granted citizenship, with one application still pending. A further two teams are working with clients to finalize their applications.
Through qLegal, a commercial law clinic, postgraduate law students at Queen Mary University of London provide advice to startups and entrepreneurs, covering issues relating to commercial law, data privacy, and IP. Sidley volunteers supervise the students as they interview the clients and provide advice. Sidley teams provided legal training and support to over 70 students under this program.
In 2025, Sidley was appointed as a Sport Resolutions Pro Bono Service Member. Sport Resolutions is a nonprofit dispute resolution service for sport — offering arbitration, mediation, tribunal, and investigation services to clients around the world. Its Pro Bono Legal Advice & Representation Service assists individuals with limited financial means who require legal assistance in sports-related proceedings. The initiative ensures that athletes and other participants in sport – who may not otherwise have access to legal representation – can obtain high-quality advice and support. Through this appointment, Sidley will join a panel of pro bono advisers comprising both law firms and chambers. We look forward to contributing our experience and resources in support of this important initiative.
Sidley is partnering with the Green Tech Legal Collaborative, a project run by Bloomberg in conjunction with Imperial College. The project pairs law firm volunteers with climate-action focused startups to provide advice for a period of nine months.
As part of the firm’s Emerging Enterprises Pro Bono Program, our Singapore office has worked together with Asian Women Development Plan International (AWDPI) on a variety of legal matters. AWDPI aims to promote equality and diversity by eliminating gender-based discrimination and violence against Asian women, and advancing their empowerment and development. AWDPI seeks to achieve this by providing legal and language support, psychological counseling, and social assistance programs to Asian women around the world. Sidley’s work with AWDPI in recent years has involved assisting them on corporate governance matters, including providing guidance on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and advising them on the replacement of a UK charity trustee.
