The best part? Witnessing the excitement on clients' faces when they explain their business idea to me and knowing that my work positively affects them.
— Zoe Wong, J.D. ’17 and former ELC Student

About the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic

The Entrepreneurial Law Clinic (ELC) is an innovative clinic serving entrepreneurs and nonprofits throughout the West Coast, with a focus on the Pacific Northwest. The ELC partners law students with pro bono attorneys and business advisors in the greater Seattle area. Together, they provide critical early-stage legal and business counseling to entrepreneurs, small business owners, nonprofits and University of Washington and Institute for Translational Health Sciences faculty researchers. The ELC also partners with various University of Washington early-stage entrepreneurial programs, including CoMotion, Creative Destruction Lab and Pack Ventures, to provide early-stage startups with legal services and help ignite growth.

The ELC brings community learning in collaboration with various Seattle-based organizations through speaking engagements, authorship and presentations on emerging and critical legal and regulatory topics relevant to startups.

Through this unique counseling model, the ELC has become one of the cornerstones of the innovation ecosystem in the Pacific Northwest.

Clients & Projects

University of Washington Law School students staff the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic (ELC) during the academic year and work in teams to counsel several clients throughout the academic year.  Students are supervised by practicing attorneys from premier global law firms and Seattle-based corporations and a full-time clinician.  Students provide legal advice on a variety of business-law issues.  Typical areas of counseling and advice include choice of entity; forming corporations and limited liability companies; drafting shareholder and operating agreements; drafting employment, consulting and intellectual property agreements; regulatory and compliance risk management; counseling clients and completing filings regarding intellectual property matters.

The ELC operates as a transactional and counseling clinic, focusing on delivering comprehensive support to nonprofits and startups through a "legal and business audit." This audit serves to proactively identify potential issues and critical legal requirements to enable growth and development of nascent or early-stage companies and continued operations for nonprofits.  Typically, teams of attorneys and students work closely with founders and executives to understand short- and long-term business objectives and recommend near-term legal risk management solutions, provided via a confidential report usually distributed at the end of each academic quarter. This report highlights potential legal concerns and offers guidance on how to address them effectively. Additionally, it outlines strategies to establish systems that limit or prevent common pitfalls in business formation and growth. Our standard representation is exclusively dedicated to facilitating this audit process.

Upon mutual written agreement between the startup / nonprofit and the ELC, we may extend our representation to assist in basic entrepreneurship-focused legal services, such as:

  • Forming a corporation, limited liability company (LLC) or other legal business entity.
  • Filing initial intellectual property (IP) documents such as provisional patent applications, copyright registrations and trademark registration applications.
  • Reviewing, negotiating and/or drafting contracts such as commercial leases and loans, vendor agreements, services agreements or employment agreements.
  • Assisting in compliance with state and local business licenses and taxes.
  • Drafting and executing trademark and copyright registrations, provisional patent applications and licensing or assignment agreements.
  • IP counseling regarding branding, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, freedom to operate, unfair competition, antitrust, publicity rights and privacy rights.
  • Corporate compliance counseling, including initial program documentation such as a Code of Conduct, employment or other policies, privacy risk management, among others.
  • Regulatory risk management counseling, including a compendium of most applicable laws or regulations, or a basic trend analysis as to emerging industry regulations.

Learning and Collaborating

Active client work is supported by weekly course work where students present on active client matters and participate in discussions with their peers to problem-solve and identify emerging legal issues with respect to their clients.

In addition, student attorneys read entrepreneurial law materials and participate in seminar discussions and problem-solving exercises led by local attorneys and entrepreneurs.  Weekly course work focuses on legal and business issues frequently addressed by practicing corporate, transactional and intellectual property attorneys who work with early-stage entrepreneurs, emerging companies and nonprofits.


ELC News

New Additions in Clinical Law
Jevan Hutson, Jeannine Lemker and Nicole McGrath
New Additions in Clinical Law

The Clinical Law program is pleased to announce three incoming clinic directors: Jevan Hutson for Technology Law and Public Policy, Jeannine Lemker for the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic and Nicole McGrath for the Tribal Court Public Defense Clinic.

Entrepreneurial Law Clinic by the Numbers
A screenshot of the statistics linked on the Entrepreneurial law Clinic.
Entrepreneurial Law Clinic by the Numbers

Learn how the clinic assists low-income entrepreneurs throughout the Pacific Northwest with their business needs while providing real-world experience for the clinic’s students.

Announcing the Entrepreneurship and the Law speaker series
Announcing the Entrepreneurship and the Law speaker series

Join us Oct. 18 and Nov. 1 for innovative legal lectures on issues affecting entrepreneurs.

UW Law welcomes new supervising patent attorneys
Patrick Njeim and Andrew Serafini
UW Law welcomes new supervising patent attorneys

Andrew Serafini and Patrick Njeim, partners at Kilpatrick, Townsend & Stockton, will work with students as part of the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic’s participation in the United States Patent and Trademark Office Law School Clinic Certification Program.

Watch: Real-World Experience through the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic
Alumna Selena Ng pictured in a YouTube video talking about the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic.
Watch: Real-World Experience through the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic

Alumna Selena Ng recalls how the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic provided invaluable, real-world experience in meeting the needs of small-business clients.