Boston College Law School gives its students a wide range of classes to take that are taught by some of the best scholars in the field. Yet, while learning about the law in a classroom is crucial to becoming a successful attorney, nothing prepares you for day-to-day practice more than getting hands-on experience before graduating. That’s where BC Law’s clinics come in.

Law students in their second and third years of study have the opportunity to apply for coveted spots in any of the school’s fifteen clinics. No matter what a student’s legal interest is, there’s a clinic for them! The BC Law Impact Blog is highlighting each of these clinics this semester, starting with Project Entrepreneur. Here is our interview with the clinic’s director, Larry Gennari.

Tell us about your clinic!

Project Entrepreneur uses corporate and entrepreneurial law to foster the successful reentry of individuals with criminal records back into society. Our outside clients are justice-involved, and most of them were previously incarcerated. By the end of the course, students develop the basic skills necessary to counsel aspiring entrepreneur clients; an understanding of the general legal issues critical to new ventures, as well as the specific legal issues pertaining to each assigned client; an appreciation for the unique challenges facing returning-citizen entrepreneurs; and an understanding of how a lawyer can best assist an entrepreneurial client in presenting or pitching their business idea to an audience of investors, strategic partners, and other stakeholders. Corporations is a prerequisite/co-requisite course for this clinic, and Professional Responsibility/Ethics is highly recommended.

What makes Project Entrepreneur unique?

Project Entrepreneur introduces students to lawyering. Typically, students work one-on-one with outside entrepreneurs, which allows our student lawyers to not only learn the substantive areas of corporate law for emerging businesses, but also to develop their own unique styles of counseling.

The learning objectives of the clinic are three-fold. First, under my supervision, students concentrate on the development of legal knowledge and counseling skills related to advising new businesses. Second, students help coordinate a multi-week bootcamp course called “Project Entrepreneur” for the enrolled entrepreneurs, which is focused on the business law aspects of creating and managing new ventures. Third, the students and I meet as a “law firm” throughout the semester, and primarily after each Project Entrepreneur class, to work through questions, challenges, and opportunities for the new ventures.

What do you love most about directing Project Entrepreneur?

My favorite part of the class is the pitch session at the end of the semester. Our entrepreneurs, supported and prepared by their student-lawyers and outside mentors, present their business ideas to an invited audience of CEOs, foundations, investors, and social venture capitalists for feedback, advice, and funding. One of our recent Project Entrepreneur clients, Stacey Borden, CEO of New Beginnings Reentry Services, received $750,000 from an investor following the pitch, which was enough to help her launch her non-profit transitional home for women leaving prison. You can read more about this clinic and another recent success story in BC Law Magazine.

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Tess Halpern is a third-year student and president of the Impact blog. Contact her at halperte@bc.edu.