UW law students assist small-business owners

Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) - August 17, 2007

by Clay Holtzman

Staff Writer

A year-old experiment at the University of Washington Law School could hold the secret to better training law students and also give a legal leg-up to struggling businesses.

The school's Entrepreneurial Law Clinic, started last year with seed money from a trio of foundations, pairs teams of third-year law and MBA students with law professors and volunteer attorneys to give transactional law assistance to small businesses and nonprofit organizations.

After a year that organizers describe as a successful learning experience, the clinic is expanding.

"I think that there has been a long-standing need for first-time enterprises to have a safe environment where they can go in and get an honest, objective assessment of where they are now and to learn what they need to know," said Sean O'Connor, an associate professor and the law clinic's faculty director.

During its first year, the clinic assisted 15 organizations: 11 companies, three nonprofits and one co-op. On a budget of about $100,000, four teams worked with clients to provide advice in such areas as formation, tax, intellectual property and trademark issues.

For Susanna Block, a doctor by training who 11 months ago co-founded a startup, the clinic helped her business get started on the right foot. Her company, World Baby Foods, sells ethnically diverse baby food.

"They helped us define what we needed to do to get started, which was invaluable because we don't have a business background," Block said of her and her husband, who also is a doctor.

The clinic was started by O'Connor and by Program Director Katie Meyer, who is a graduate of the UW's Law School. Although it is meant to be an economic development tool that will assist new entrepreneurs, resource-strapped nonprofits and even startups looking for funding, the clinic's greatest value probably lies in the experience it holds for law students.

"It was great for me to see the students going from being scared or not confident to being 'this is old hat,'" Meyer said.

The clinic, which set up shop in donated space by the Washington Research Foundation, had a dozen law students who were matched with clients for an academic quarter or more. Teams could not give official legal advice, but they did highlight requirements and laws that clients needed to know about.

The clinic is meant to help students think on their feet, experience the surprises that come with practicing law and to begin thinking like lawyers.

Earlier this year, the California-based Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching published a report on educating lawyers. The report observes that law schools give only limited attention to teaching students how to use legal thinking in real world experiences and that students need to learn about, reflect upon and practice the responsibilities of legal work.

O'Connor says clinics are the way that students transition from the classroom to the courtroom.

"There is a profound difference between learning the law on the books and helping your client solve real world problems with real, legal solutions," O'Connor said.

UW law students did so under the guidance of volunteer lawyers who, like the clients, were eager to get involved with the clinic. The clinic worked with 27 volunteer attorneys during its first year.

"There are very few, if any, pro bono opportunities for in-house counsel and particularly counsel who specialize in intellectual property matters," said Jeff Oster, general counsel for Redmond-based tech company Asemblon Inc.

Oster said because intellectual and transactional law are always in demand, programs like the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic are essential.

"It gives them perspective of how to apply the theoretical legal knowledge to the practicality of the legal problems that companies and organizations encounter," Oster said.

The Entrepreneurial Law Clinic also gave students like 32-year-old Benjamin Keim a rare chance to work in the area of transactional law.

"There really wasn't anything else related to intellectual property or even business in terms of the clinic choices," said Keim, who wants to practice intellectual property law with a firm or at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

While the law clinic aims to assist small businesses that cannot afford legal services, it made at least one notable exception to that rule. Seattle-based nonprofit global health agency PATH, which this fiscal year will have an annual budget of about $160 million, received intellectual property assistance through the clinic.

O'Connor said it is important to the program to be flexible and to select clients based on the merit and collective benefit of their work. The legal assistance the clinic gave PATH could help the agency develop a new medical test that not only could save lives but in turn could further fuel Seattle's growing reputation as a hub for global health work.

This year, the clinic will expand to include 15 students for a total of five teams and add a classroom component in order to ensure that students experience a wide variety of legal situations. Also, volunteer attorneys will get more assistance to better teach students.

"What we realized, based on the comments from the students, is we need to take a little more control of the teaching part or make sure the supervising attorneys were ready to teach as opposed to just supervise," Meyer said.

Contact: choltzman@bizjournals.com • 206-447-8505x149