Entrepreneurial Law Clinic
As a rising entrepreneur and inventor, I'm really happy that the pro bono services provided by the ELC are available to students who may not have the financial resources to pursue legal consultation.
Overview of Services Provided
The ELC is a transactional and counseling clinic. We do not represent clients in litigation, arbitration, mediation or any other active dispute. Instead, our services center on providing your business with a comprehensive "legal and business audit" to help you identify critical legal pathways to ensuring your business complies with relevant laws and serves as an enablement tool to support business growth. We provide you with a confidential report, generally at the end of the academic quarter in which you or your business became a client. This report gives you guidance on how to proceed to establish necessary processes or systems needed to comply with relevant laws and regulations and as needed, remedy potential problems and/or establish systems to limit or prevent standard business formation and growth pitfalls. Our standard representation includes a commitment only to this audit process.
Upon mutual written agreement between you and the ELC, we may extend our representation to assist you in basic entrepreneurship-focused legal service, such as:
- Forming a corporation, limited liability company (LLC) or other legal business entity as appropriate.
- Filing simple 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, patents, 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.