Biographical Sketch - John M. Little
John Little was born and raised in upstate New York's Hudson Valley. He received his B.A. Degree from the University of Alabama in 1969. He received his J.D. degree from Gonzaga University School of Law in 1978. Upon graduation he was awarded a two year "community lawyering" fellowship through Howard University and was assigned to work with a small legal services program in Huntsville, Alabama. During that time he helped to create and direct a statewide community development initiative that provided training and transactional legal assistance to over 45 nonprofit organizations which included farmer co-ops, Indian tribes, and urban community development corporations. . Upon completion of the fellowship he worked for five years with Alabama Legal Service's Tuscaloosa Regional Office. During that time he continued to coordinate the statewide community development initiative. He also provided a wide variety of legal assistance to low income persons in areas such as family law, evictions, forclosures, bankruptcy, Social Security, Black land loss, consumer protection and veteran discharge upgrade.
In 1985 he began his employment as the director of the community development unit at Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc. (the largest anti-poverty law firm in Florida). In that role he provided legal assistance to small businesses and nonprofits that were engaged in housing, economic and community development ventures in ethnically diverse low income In that time he provided legal assistance to virtually every significant nonprofit developer in Miami-Dade County assisting them with things such as property acquisition, closing on financing, construction contracts, etc.. He retired from that position in 2014. Since 2005 and continuing to the present day he is an adjunct professor in the clinical program of Florida International University's College of Law supervising and teaching at the Small Business Legal Clinic. In his semi-retirement he maintains a small private practice that provides assistance to nonprofit developers of affordable housing.
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