Entrepreneurship Clinic

Course Description

The Entrepreneurship Clinic is a one-semester course that introduces students to transactional lawyering. Students in the Clinic will provide free transactional legal services to low income and moderate income entrepreneurs and community based organizations in New York City on issues relating to new and emerging businesses. The clinic will appeal to students interested in learning to work with organizational clients and learning to represent entrepreneurs.

Fieldwork

Fieldwork in the Clinic will take the form of interviewing, legal research, problem-solving and legal analysis, writing, counseling, transaction/project planning, negotiating, and drafting contracts.  More specifically, the Clinic will undertake legal work for clients that may include: 1) advising about entity choice and assisting with corporate formation, 2) answering employment law questions, 3) assisting with the registration of trademarks and advising on other intellectual property issues, 4) drafting and negotiating agreements such as leases and other contract agreements, 5) assisting with applications for tax-exemptions and 6) advising on relevant regulatory and licensing issues. Students may also research and write on issues related to public policies that affect Clinic clients and may provide community education workshops on substantive law issues pertinent to the Clinic’s practice areas.

Seminar

As part of their Clinic experience, students attend a weekly classroom seminar, which combines analysis of client matters, the relevant substantive law and lawyering skills required in a transactional practice.  

Attorneys for entrepreneurs encounter client needs in a variety of expansive substantive areas.  In addition to the lawyering skills learned in seminar and clinic work, student attorneys in the clinic will be exposed to a range of substantive legal disciplines in the seminar including:

• Business formation
• Intellectual property law
• Contract drafting and negotiation
• Start-up capital raising  and financing
• Corporate governance
• Employment law
• Other transactional legal services

Application Procedure

Students interested in applying for the clinic should submit the standard application, resume, and transcript online through CAMS.

* 6 credits include 3 clinical (fieldwork) credits and 3 academic seminar credits.