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 can apply for coveted spots in any of the school’s fifteen clinics. No matter what someone’s legal interest is, there’s a clinic for them! To help students better understand the opportunities available to them, the BC Law Impact Blog is highlighting each of these clinics this semester. Here is our interview with the director of the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Clinic, Sandy Tarrant.

Tell us about your clinic!

The Entrepreneurship & Innovation Clinic (EIC) is a transactional clinic where students represent very early-stage businesses on transactional matters. Working under my supervision, students provide a range of business law, intellectual property, and transactional services to operating businesses and founders hoping to start them. Our clients include technology entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, brick and mortar businesses, nonprofit organizations and, from time to time, artists of different types. Often, some clients are Boston College student entrepreneurs! These clients come to us with legal needs ranging from entity formation, governance matters, and trademark applications, to contract drafting and negotiation, regulatory compliance, and asset purchases and sales.

What makes the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Clinic unique?

The EIC is committed to supporting Boston College student entrepreneurs, as well as founders of diverse backgrounds. Non-white founders are predominantly under-supported and under-resourced in the United States, especially when compared to white founders, so the EIC is designed and operated to support these businesses. In any given semester, sixty to eighty percent of our clients are started by Black and brown founders who are located throughout Greater Boston. Additionally, all of our clients are unable to pay for legal services.

In this way, the EIC supports the mission of the law school and the ethical responsibility of lawyers to support the community. It’s a great opportunity for students to learn that business lawyers — not just litigators — can make a positive, meaningful impact on the community by working with these aspiring companies in their earliest days. Helping to build new businesses that’ll contribute to the economic development of the cities where they operate is a great way to learn that you can do business while doing good. Not all of our clients succeed, of course, but many of them do! In fact, it’s particularly inspiring and exciting when clients outgrow us and need paid, ongoing legal counsel.

What kind of work do students engage in through the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Clinic?

Almost any type of business law work that doesn’t involve litigation could be on a student’s plate in a semester: drafting and negotiating contracts, leases, policies, licenses, and other documents; negotiating these arrangements; advising on structuring and restructuring businesses; applying for federal trademark and copyright registrations; advising co-founders on sharing equity; explaining IP rights and obligations; drafting terms of service and privacy policies; advising on employee hiring rules and worker classification; and conducting industry-specific research. Less often, we also advise companies as they begin to raise outside funding and prepare them for the securities laws they need to follow.

What do you love most about directing the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Clinic?

I love some of our clinic traditions! Each semester we visit former EIC clients who are now based at GreenTown Labs in Somerville, a clean/green technology incubator space for companies trying to save the planet. In the fall, students are also able to attend the pitch night for SSC Venture Partners, a Boston College alumni network that supports BC-founded startups.

But more than anything, I love seeing the students grow into attorneys. My job is simply to support them on their journey and champion their professional development. I’m so proud of every student.

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