Entrepreneurial Law Clinic
Promoting Economic Development by Facilitating Entrepreneurship
The Entrepreneurial Law Clinic (ELC) is an innovative clinic serving entrepreneurs throughout the Pacific Northwest.
We team law and business students with pro bono attorneys and business advisors
to provide critical early stage legal and business counseling to the following groups:
By providing such counseling, the ELC has become one of the cornerstones of the
innovation ecosystem in the Pacific Northwest.
The
ELC is based on a pioneering model developed by Professor Sean O’Connor that
is a hybrid of a traditional law clinic and an externship. This model allows more
clients and students to interact in the ELC than in a traditional clinic. It also taps
the strong entrepreneurship-focused legal practitioner community in the Seattle
area to deliver experienced, high quality legal services and mentorship to the ELC clients
and students. The ELC models after the structure and services of technology and entrepreneurship
focused law firms by providing access to lawyers and students specializing in critical
fields such as intellectual property (IP), corporate and securities law, and tax.
The Entrepreneurial Law Clinic (ELC) was founded in recognition that:
- Low or no cost legal services to entrepreneurs and non-profits that serve them
might demonstrably assist in board-based economic development;
- Low or no
cost legal services may be required to fulfill society’s, and the legal
profession’s, obligation to provide meaningful access to justice across a broad
spectrum of needs; and
- Emphasis
on leveraging a region’s research institutions can be used as an engine for desirable
high tech economic development.