Entre­pre­neur­ship Clinic

Sec­ond- and third-year law stu­dents should reg­is­ter for the sev­en-cred­it clin­ic through the Law School’s com­put­er­ized reg­is­tra­tion system.

There are no pre­req­ui­sites for tak­ing the clin­ic. Because much of the client work will be in cor­po­rate, tax, intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, and oth­er busi­ness areas, stu­dents will like­ly find pri­or course work in those areas helpful.

The clin­ic is a sev­en-cred­it course — three for the sem­i­nar and four for the client work. Both por­tions are graded.

The clin­ic includes a three-cred­it sem­i­nar. The class­room com­po­nent address­es top­ics includ­ing how to effec­tive­ly rep­re­sent entre­pre­neur­ial ven­tures, inter­view­ing and coun­sel­ing clients, nego­ti­at­ing and draft­ing doc­u­ments, plan­ning client mat­ters, cross-cul­­tur­al lawyer­ing, enti­ty for­ma­tion, financ­ing the enti­ty, intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, legal ethics, and oth­er rel­e­vant top­ics. Clin­ic stu­dents also par­tic­i­pate in ​“case rounds” in which they present and dis­cuss the var­i­ous mat­ters the clin­ic is handling.

Beyond the sem­i­nar class meet­ings, the clin­ic involves fre­quent meet­ings with the clin­ic fac­ul­ty, clients, and fel­low stu­dent attorneys.

Law stu­dents tak­ing the clin­ic should expect a sig­nif­i­cant amount of work (includ­ing inde­pen­dent research and edu­ca­tion) to suf­fi­cient­ly address the diver­si­ty of legal needs that entre­pre­neurs present. Stu­dent attor­neys should expect to spend at least 12 – 16 hours each week rep­re­sent­ing their clients. In addi­tion to this client rep­re­sen­ta­tion, stu­dent attor­neys attend four hours of class each week, pre­pare for each class, meet with their super­vis­ing fac­ul­ty, attend local entre­pre­neur­ial events, and plan and deliv­er edu­ca­tion­al ses­sions (e.g., office hours, pre­sen­ta­tions, and pub­li­ca­tions) to the local com­mu­ni­ty. Stu­dent attor­neys will have a set five-hour peri­od each week when they must be present in the clin­ic space. In short, law stu­dents tak­ing the clin­ic should plan their semes­ter accord­ing­ly so they can devote the nec­es­sary time to the clin­ic and their clients.

Because the clin­ic focus­es on teach­ing how to advise entre­pre­neur­ial ven­tures in the capac­i­ty as a lawyer, only law stu­dents may apply to be stu­dents in the clin­ic. On the oth­er hand, any Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan stu­dent may apply to be a client of the clinic.

The clin­ic has expe­ri­enced high demand from law stu­dents. The clin­ic seeks to admit a well-round­ed group of stu­dent attor­neys that can suf­fi­cient­ly meet the legal needs of the clin­ic clients. 

The clinic’s clients will come from U‑M’s excep­tion­al stu­dent body, includ­ing those from the engi­neer­ing, busi­ness, and med­ical schools as well as entre­pre­neur­ial ven­tures in Ann Arbor, Detroit, and South­east­ern Michigan.

The clin­ic rep­re­sents stu­­dent-led and oth­er entre­pre­neur­ial ven­tures. Clients may include U‑M under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate stu­­dent-led busi­ness­es or indi­vid­ual stu­dent inven­tors. The clin­ic also rep­re­sents U‑M alum­ni con­cern­ing tech­nol­o­gy invent­ed as a stu­dent at U‑M.

The clin­ic gen­er­al­ly will not rep­re­sent ven­tures con­cern­ing Uni­ver­si­­ty-held intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty. There­fore, if your tech­nol­o­gy was invent­ed or joint­ly invent­ed by a U‑M employ­ee, you should con­sult U‑M’s Office of Tech­nol­o­gy Trans­fer for advice con­cern­ing your technology.

The clin­ic offers trans­ac­tion­al and coun­sel­ing legal ser­vices in the fol­low­ing areas:

• Select­ing and form­ing a legal enti­ty and struc­tur­ing own­er­ship and capital
• Coun­sel­ing con­cern­ing intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty (e.g., copy­right, trade­mark, patent, and trade secret)
• Draft­ing and nego­ti­at­ing contracts
• Advis­ing on real-estate matters
• Advis­ing on employ­ment law issues
• Assist­ing on fundrais­ing and finance issues

The Clin­ic gen­er­al­ly does not pro­vide the fol­low­ing services:

• Lit­i­ga­tion or dis­pute resolution
• Pure tax advice
• Immi­gra­tion law

The clin­ic does not charge for its ser­vices, although clients are respon­si­ble for expens­es relat­ed to their mat­ter. For exam­ple, the fees for fil­ing the Arti­cles of Orga­ni­za­tion for a Michi­gan LLC start at $50.

You may apply to become a client of the clin­ic by sub­mit­ting the appli­ca­tion form.

The clin­ic may con­tact you for addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion. The clin­ic accepts appli­ca­tions on an ongo­ing basis. While the clin­ic hopes to serve as many clients as pos­si­ble, the clin­ic typ­i­cal­ly only has resources to accept a small num­ber of the clients that apply. A rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the clin­ic will con­tact you short­ly after we receive your appli­ca­tion. If you have press­ing legal needs, how­ev­er, please do not wait to hear from the clin­ic before pur­su­ing oth­er poten­tial legal ser­vice providers.

The clin­ic will select its clients based on var­i­ous cri­te­ria, such as the following:

• The request­ed ser­vices are appro­pri­ate for law students
• The request­ed ser­vices present an inter­est­ing edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ty for the clinic’s law students
• Any dead­lines for the ser­vices are con­sis­tent with the edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion of the clin­ic, its semes­ter sched­ule, and its resources
• The ser­vices are like­ly to sig­nif­i­cant­ly assist the client’s entre­pre­neur­ial efforts
• The client has a demon­strat­ed com­mit­ment to fur­ther­ing his/​her ven­ture and is able to active­ly and respon­sive­ly engage with the clinic’s stu­dent attor­neys and faculty.

Also, please note that as a gen­er­al rule, the clin­ic will not rep­re­sent one stu­dent against anoth­er in any own­er­ship dis­pute. Accord­ing­ly, the clin­ic will gen­er­al­ly not take on a client (or will have to pause from rep­re­sent­ing a client) if a gen­uine dis­pute over rights in the client’s tech­nol­o­gy exists or aris­es. Also, as anoth­er gen­er­al rule, the clin­ic will not rep­re­sent a client on an issue adverse to U‑M.

A client’s pri­ma­ry advi­sors will be sec­ond- and third-year law stu­dents close­ly super­vised by expe­ri­enced clin­i­cal fac­ul­ty. On occa­sion, attor­neys in pri­vate prac­tice also will assist the law students.

If the clin­ic is unable to take on your mat­ter, upon request, we can attempt to refer you to a pri­vate prac­tice attor­ney that can assist you.

While the legal issues that entre­pre­neurs con­front vary great­ly, the fol­low­ing are exam­ples of issues the clin­ic could address:

• Select­ing the appro­pri­ate legal enti­ty to form (e.g., LLC, C Corp, or S Corp) to shield against lia­bil­i­ty, own intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, and in which to share equi­ty between founders and oth­er con­trib­u­tors or investors
• Form­ing a legal enti­ty (e.g., LLC, C Corp, or S Corp) includ­ing fil­ing the orga­ni­za­tion­al doc­u­ments, such as arti­cles or orga­ni­za­tion or incor­po­ra­tion, draft­ing gov­er­nance doc­u­ments such as oper­at­ing agree­ments or bylaws, draft­ing employ­ment or inde­pen­dent con­trac­tor agree­ments, or draft­ing oth­er relat­ed documents
• Draft­ing and nego­ti­at­ing fund­ing agree­ments for a start-up venture
• Advis­ing on the legal­i­ty of a busi­ness mod­el (e.g., advis­ing on how pri­va­cy laws impact a social net­work­ing venture)
• Advis­ing on a start­up venture’s free­dom to oper­ate in view of oth­ers’ intel­lec­tu­al property
• Draft­ing and nego­ti­at­ing intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty licens­es or oth­er agree­ments, such as soft­ware devel­op­ment agreements
• Assist­ing with prepar­ing and fil­ing a pro­vi­sion­al patent application
• Clear­ing the abil­i­ty to use a par­tic­u­lar name or mark for the student’s tech­nol­o­gy or business
• Apply­ing for trade­mark reg­is­tra­tion and oth­er coun­sel­ing con­cern­ing trade­mark protection
• Advis­ing on a student’s legal rights in soft­ware or oth­er works of authorship
• Imple­ment­ing best prac­tices for secur­ing trade secret or oth­er con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion, includ­ing draft­ing and review­ing nondis­clo­sure agreements
• Coun­sel­ing on data pro­tec­tion, includ­ing draft­ing click-wrap or oth­er end-user agree­ments for pro­tect­ing online databases
• Coun­sel­ing on real prop­er­ty issues such as com­mer­cial leases.

The Zell Entre­pre­neur­ship Clin­ic launched in 2012 with the sup­port of a gen­er­ous dona­tion from Michi­gan Law alum­nus Sam Zell, ​’66. The clin­ic pro­vides free legal ser­vices to U‑M stu­­dent-led start-up ven­tures. The clin­ic runs on a semes­ter sched­ule and includes ​“reg­u­lar” clin­ic stu­dents each semes­ter and a small num­ber of returning ​“advanced” clin­ic stu­dents. The law stu­dents attend four hours of class each week, in which they learn and dis­cuss both the prac­ti­cal lawyer­ing skills and sub­stan­tive legal knowl­edge asso­ci­at­ed with rep­re­sent­ing entre­pre­neur­ial ven­tures. The law stu­dents also spend 12 to 16 hours per week rep­re­sent­ing mul­ti­ple clients. We also expect the law stu­dents to active­ly engage in the local and cam­pus entre­pre­neur­ial com­mu­ni­ty by attend­ing events and offer­ing edu­ca­tion­al workshops.

The clin­ic assists with enti­ty selec­tion and for­ma­tion, financ­ing, intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty coun­sel­ing (includ­ing free­dom to oper­ate, pro­vi­sion­al patent appli­ca­tion prepa­ra­tion, trade­mark pros­e­cu­tion, and clear­ance), and oth­er relat­ed trans­ac­tion­al work.

The clin­ic focus­es on rep­re­sent­ing ven­tures launched by stu­­dent-led and oth­er entre­pre­neur­ial ven­tures. Typ­i­cal ven­tures include: mobile or web apps, infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy, med­ical devices, and clean tech. Most of our clients involve U‑M engi­neer­ing or busi­ness stu­dents (both under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate). Clients receive busi­ness sup­port and men­tor­ing from the Zell Lurie Insti­tute at U‑M’s Ross School of Busi­ness and U‑M’s Cen­ter for Entrepreneurship.

Clin­ic stu­dents typ­i­cal­ly have demon­strat­ed a com­mit­ment to work­ing with entre­pre­neur­ial ven­tures through sum­mer asso­ciate posi­tions at top law firms around the world, oth­er start­up or ven­ture cap­i­tal relat­ed work (some have launched their own star­tups in the past), or oth­er Law School extracur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties such as the Entre­pre­neur­ship and Law Asso­ci­a­tion, the Michi­gan Busi­ness & Entre­pre­neur­ial Law Review,​and the Busi­ness Law Association.

Michi­gan court rules allow sec­ond and third-year law stu­dents to engage in the prac­tice of law under the close super­vi­sion of expe­ri­enced attor­neys. Clin­ic stu­dent attor­neys typ­i­cal­ly work in teams of two under the close super­vi­sion of one of the clin­ic fac­ul­ty. Although they are close­ly super­vised, the stu­dent attor­neys take the lead in rep­re­sent­ing the clients, serve as the pri­ma­ry inter­face with them, and draft and pro­pose all cours­es of action. The stu­dent attor­neys meet with their super­vis­ing fac­ul­ty mem­ber at least once a week for an hour.

Affil­i­ate attor­neys will assist in super­vis­ing and men­tor­ing one team of clin­ic stu­dent attor­neys. We expect affil­i­ate attor­neys to have the fol­low­ing roles:

• par­tic­i­pate (either per­son­al­ly or remote­ly) in a meet­ing (or a por­tion there­of) at a set time each week with the stu­dent team and the super­vis­ing fac­ul­ty member;
• be rea­son­ably avail­able to peri­od­i­cal­ly com­mu­ni­cate with clin­ic stu­dent attor­neys via email or phone;
• men­tor stu­dent attor­neys on the prac­tice of law in rep­re­sent­ing entre­pre­neur­ial ventures;
• advise clin­ic stu­dent attor­neys on spe­cif­ic legal issues that arise in their client work.

We expect that affil­i­ate attor­neys would have access to con­fi­den­tial attor­ney-client priv­i­leged infor­ma­tion and would be part of the legal team. It is up to each affil­i­ate attor­ney, and/​or his or her firm, whether they would have a direct engage­ment with the client and run a con­flict check in advance.

We under­stand, first-hand, the unpre­dictable and busy nature of your prac­tices. We will work with our stu­dent attor­neys to be respect­ful of and flex­i­ble with your time. We ask each Affil­i­ate Attor­ney to com­mit to at least one hour per week of work with their assigned stu­dent attor­neys. We will have a set meet­ing time each week with the stu­dent attor­neys and the super­vis­ing fac­ul­ty mem­ber, and ide­al­ly, the Affil­i­ate Attor­ney would be able to par­tic­i­pate in that meet­ing (phone, Zoom, or oth­er video con­fer­enc­ing ser­vice is fine) for a few minutes. 

We would like the Affil­i­ate Attor­ney to be up to speed on the client mat­ter so that when spe­cif­ic ques­tions arise, the Affil­i­ate Attor­ney already has a sol­id under­stand­ing of the client mat­ter. The Clin­ic fac­ul­ty will typ­i­cal­ly serve as the first line of super­vi­sion for the clin­ic stu­dent attorneys. 

We antic­i­pate using Affil­i­ate Attor­neys most­ly for ques­tions involv­ing their spe­cif­ic area of exper­tise or that involve a ques­tion of indus­try cus­tom to which the Affil­i­ate Attor­ney would be privy. Of course, we envi­sion this rela­tion­ship being flex­i­ble and each Affil­i­ate Attor­ney and team of stu­dent attor­neys will nat­u­ral­ly devel­op their own unique relationship.

The fol­low­ing are some of the advan­tages to serv­ing as an affil­i­ate attorney:

• work with enthu­si­as­tic, bright law stu­dents and their enthu­si­as­tic, bright clients;
• access to top U‑M law stu­dents seek­ing to work in the cor­po­rate and IP fields after graduation;
• get the ful­fill­ment of men­tor­ing and help­ing a new gen­er­a­tion of attorneys;
• poten­tial­ly obtain pro bono cred­it depend­ing on your state rules;
• get involved with the Entre­pre­neur­ship Clin­ic, and per­haps par­tic­i­pate more broad­ly as a guest speak­er at the Law School, an advis­er to the clin­ic fac­ul­ty, a guest blog­ger on our web­site, etc.

The clin­ic runs on a semes­ter sched­ule: a fall semes­ter from Sep­tem­ber to Decem­ber and a win­ter semes­ter from Jan­u­ary until ear­ly May. We ask that each affil­i­ate attor­ney make a com­mit­ment for a full semes­ter (absent extreme cir­cum­stances). Affil­i­ate attor­neys can serve mul­ti­ple semes­ters if they wish, although we will prob­a­bly try to rotate through a pool of inter­est­ed affil­i­ate attor­neys so we can give every­one a break.

The Zell Entre­pre­neur­ship and Law (ZEAL) Pro­gram at Michi­gan Law is a unique pro­gram that pro­vides both prac­ti­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal train­ing to law stu­dents inter­est­ed in work­ing with entre­pre­neur­ial businesses.

The cor­ner­stone of ZEAL is the Entre­pre­neur­ship Clin­ic, where stu­dent attor­neys, under the guid­ance of super­vis­ing fac­ul­ty, offer free legal advice and legal ser­vices to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michigan’s bur­geon­ing num­ber of stu­dent entre­pre­neurs from across all schools and dis­ci­plines on the Ann Arbor cam­pus, as well as entre­pre­neur­ial ven­tures in South­east­ern Michigan. 

Sup­ple­ment­ing the Entre­pre­neur­ship Clin­ic are cours­es taught by full- and part-time fac­ul­ty who have expe­ri­ence work­ing with both star­tups and exist­ing entre­pre­neur­ial busi­ness­es. Stu­dents will learn about ven­ture finance, pri­vate equi­ty, star­tups, real estate, merg­ers and acqui­si­tions, invest­ment bank­ing, IPOs, intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, employ­ment law, and relat­ed areas.

Seed­ed with a gift from Sam Zell, ​’66, a Chi­ca­­go-based entre­pre­neur who earned his under­grad­u­ate and law degrees at Michi­gan, ZEAL is part of wider U‑M ini­tia­tives geared toward entre­pre­neur­ial devel­op­ment, including:

• The Samuel Zell and Robert H. Lurie Insti­tute for Entre­pre­neur­ial Stud­ies at the Ross School of Busi­ness (ZLI)
• The Cen­ter for Entre­pre­neur­ship (CFE) with­in the School of Engineering 
• The Michi­gan Ven­ture Center
• stu­­dent-run pro­grams like the Wolver­ine Ven­ture Fund 
• A vari­ety of com­pe­ti­tions and grant pro­grams that encour­age stu­dent startups

• Zell Lurie Institute
• Inno­vate Blue
• Ann Arbor Spark
• MPOW­ERED
• Cen­ter for Entrepreneurship
• School of Information
• Desai Accel­er­a­tor
• School of Pub­lic Health
• Fast For­ward
• TECHARB