When University alumna and successful business woman Carolyn Chambers donated $1 million to the University’s School of Law, her gift established the Center for Law and Entrepreneurship, but the offering came with a stipulation: She wanted students to learn how to be deal makers, not deal breakers.
From her aspiration was born the Small Business Clinic in the Business Law department where eight students, four in the fall and four in the spring, step out of the classroom and into the strenuous, bustling world of an attorney.
“This is the first time in law school students get actual experience,” the clinic’s Director Jill Fetherstonhaugh said. “We run it like a little law firm where they’re the associates and I’m the partner.”
In this prototype, law firm students meet with small business owners to advise them on legal issues, draft and review contracts, and offer suggestions on other business matters. Fetherstonhaugh oversees the process, but it’s the students who are in the hot seat, looking for red flags while listening to their clients’ needs.
Students also learn how to manage a client and their file, and while the latter can be learned in a classroom, professional client management can only be taught from experience.
“The Small Business Clinic was an invaluable experience, and I think it was definitely something that the interviewers looked at very highly. It came up in just about every interview I had,” Chris Walther, a former clinic student and now associate with the largest private law firm in Nevada, said.
The program’s benefits may be rich for the students, but it is the service’s cost that makes it ideal for the client. Normally, business owners would pay between $130 to $200 per hour for this type of legal advice, but at the Small Business Clinic there is no charge. Business owners pay only the registration fees charged by the state of Oregon, and any out-of-pocket expenses – totaling approximately $50 to $100. Clients save anywhere from $800 to a couple of thousand dollars by going to the clinic.
More than 80 small businesses from all over Oregon have come to the clinic since its inception in the spring ’04 semester. The clinic’s client list includes a chef and a camp counselor, a biotechnology company and an organic fiber textile producer, a hot sauce maker, tanning salon and an alpaca ranch.
“I received top-notch legal service … I also gained increased confidence in my ability to run a business, and that is something I didn’t expect,” Tamara Shields, owner of Journey Back in Time said of the Small Business Clinic in the clinic’s pamphlet.
The Small Business Clinic is prestigious in the Business Law program, and students must face a gauntlet of obstacles to get accepted and succeed in the semester long clinic. About 25 applications are received and sifted through for the eight available positions. Only third-year law students are eligible, and both Business Associations 1 and Federal Tax 1 classes are prerequisites.
In early March, those lucky enough to make it through to an interview must compete with other law school students’ resumes, some of which are overflowing with experience and education. Of the four students in the spring ’07 clinic: Brian Anderson was an intern for a Congressman in Washington D.C., Lalo Garcia is a law clerk and an associate editor of the Oregon Review of International Law, Megan Kronsteiner clerked for a Lane County Circuit Court judge, and John Mann has two bachelor’s degrees, worked for an Oregon Supreme Court judge, and is an associate editor of the Oregon Review of International Law.
Once the students are accepted, the real-life tests begin.
Each student is assigned three or four clients during the semester, and spend an average of seven hours per week over that period – a minimum of 105 hours. Students also participate in weekly seminars where they are given a scenario that they must work out while being surrounded by possible problems. Business professionals often come and give speeches to offer insight into their careers. Experts in insurance, securities and banking have come to the clinic as well as business owners, government employees and accomplished attorneys.
“We have heard over and over again that this is the best experience they’ve had, and they love working with a practicing attorney,” the program’s Administrative Coordinator Laurie Strother said of the clinic’s former students.
Current employment for many of the previous students is the benchmark of the Small Business Clinic’s potential for it’s members’ futures. Chris Walther, from the fall ’05 clinic, is an associate in Las Vegas with the business and litigation firm Lionel Sawyer and Collins, the largest private law firm in Nevada. AnneMarie Sgarlata, a spring ’06 student, is an assistant attorney general for the Oregon Department of Justice. Emily Lawrence, Fall ’05, works in Palo Alto, Calif. for Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, an international leader in capital markets, technology and energy.
“In the corporate and securities section of the law firm in which I work, the Small Business Clinic really put me a step ahead. The practical experience I gained at the clinic just can’t be taught in a classroom,” Lawrence said in an e-mail. “[Also] it was a lot of fun interacting with clients and watching their businesses be successful.”
The success of the Small Business Clinic reaches beyond just the clients because as Fetherstonhaugh puts it, “the benefits are really threefold.” The student learns how to be a professional lawyer, the client gets top quality legal assistance for no hourly fee, and a legal firm gets to hire an associate who can hit the ground running because they have experience.
“This weekend I had brunch with a law school classmate who is now an associate at a large corporate firm,” Sgarlata wrote in an e-mail. “She was excited to share how one of the partners in her firm entrusted her with the task of explaining to a client in a client meeting how to go about setting up an LLC, I had to suppress a smile, as I thought ‘hmm in the Small Business Clinic we each met with three clients and organized about three of those.”
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