ENTREPRENEURSHIP LAW CLINIC
Hands-On Experience Forming Business Entities
Students in the Entrepreneurship Law Clinic (ELC) help clients choose, form, and operate their businesses. In the ELC, you will be assigned actual clients with real-world business interests to represent. Your work may involve sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations, or LLCs, with needs ranging from formation to effective operation, depending on the needs of your clients. Our clients come from a wide range of industries, from restaurants and breweries to software and medical device companies, and we try to match students with clients from an industry the student is interested in.
Service work in the ELC typically includes:
- client interviewing
- providing advice regarding choice of entity and structuring considerations
- preparing entity formation documents
- preparing organizational / governance documents (such as articles of organization for an LLC, or bylaws and a shareholder agreement for a corporation)
- preparing a memorandum to clients regarding the maintenance and operation of their new entities
- preparing various contracts, such as confidentiality agreements, non-disclosure agreements, and employment or independent contractor agreements
- managing client files throughout using law practice management software of the sort common to law firms large and small
Our goal is providing each student with a learning experience unsurpassed in even the best law firm or in-house environments. Your client work will be supervised and written work product reviewed by one or more practicing professors, each with years of experience forming and operating of business entities. You will be introduced to and work with the same materials these attorneys use in daily life, develop the oral and written skills needed for effective client work, collaborate with your colleagues on tougher issues, and enjoy multiple opportunities for feedback along the way.
The Entrepreneurship Law Clinic will be four units and will be offered together with the Community Development Clinic.