The Practicum is the centerpiece of Law and Entrepreneurship LLM Program.  During the spring semester, students work in startup companies, venture capital firms, regulatory agencies, law firms with entrepreneurial practices, and similar organizations.  The goal of the program is to expose students to a wide range of entrepreneurial issues in a “real-life” setting.  The Practicum goes beyond general coursework to provide specific, useful skills and information.  It allows students to address the intersection of legal principles and practical business applications, in the context of entrepreneurship and early state enterprise.  Each student joins a legal or leadership team, under the supervision of a mentor who is committed to guiding his or her professional development through the course of the practicum.  Through the Practicum, the students are able to be highly competent legal practitioners, savvy business people, effective problem solvers and are skilled in transforming ideas.

“One of my goals for the practicum was to work with a company that is in what I think of as the ‘exit stage’ of the entrepreneurial process.  It’s equally important for a public company to continue the innovation and growth process as it is for a young startup seeking venture capital funding. I picked SciQuest, a smaller company that grew so rapidly that it went public in Fall 2010.  At this stage, the legal issues can become more complex and one must adapt to an entirely new set of responsibilities.”

– Brandon Bartee LLMLE'11
Learn more about Brandon

Representative LLMLE Practicum Hosts

• Practicum hosts vary each year depending on needs of the organizations and student interests.  
• 8 Rivers Capital
  Develops and commercializes new technologies relating to energy, water, wireless communications and industrial processes.
• AI Patents
  A revolutionary patent search engine that addresses the problem that the same idea can be described in multiple ways.
• Altometrics
  This patent-pending Analytics Platform technology enabling fast, efficient analysis of vast amounts of archived and current data.
• Amundi Smith Breeden
  Manages portfolios for corporate and public pensions, foundations, endowments, insurance companies, private banks, and sovereign funds
• Automated Insights
  An artificial intelligence platform to sift through large data sets to spot interesting patterns, trends, and insights, and then describe those findings in plain English with the tone, personality, and variability of a human writer.
• Bandwidth.com
  Source for high speed and reliable business VoIP, internet access, and hosted IP.
• Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network
  Successful entrepreneurs and support staff utilize their experience to guide and support startups through company development covering a range of business growth needs.
• Bull City Forward
  Organization to curate the community and connect social entrepreneurs to resources via website, newsletter, events, and more, including the launch of the 2013 Innovation Challenge and Fellows Program.
• CBC New Media Group, LLC / Capital Broadcasting Co.
  Communications, media, and broadcasting company, including television stations and other ventures.
• Channel Advisor
  Provider of cloud-based e-commerce solutions that enable retailers and manufacturers to integrate, manage and optimize mechandise sales.
• Charleston Digital Corridor
  Creative effort by the city to attract and grow knowledge-based enterprises.
• Cherokee Investment Partners
  Investment company that blends capital with creativity, experience and resolve to provide superior financial, environmental and social returns for investors, partners and communities.
• CleanHatch
  Matches investors with pre-qualified renewable energy projects.
• Clinipace
  A global digital contract research organization (dCRO), serving venture-backed, mid-tier, and strategic pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device firms.
• Community Empowerment Fund
  Offers savings opportunities, financial education, and assertive support to individuals who are seeking employment, housing, and financial freedom.
• Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED)
  Community of people inspired by entrepreneurship, and includes a wide range of members including startup companies, more mature growth-stage firms, investors, service partners, academics, and individuals.
• CREE, Inc.
  Multinational manufacturer of semiconductor light-emitting diode materials and devices, with its headquarters in Durham, North Carolina.
• Duke Office of Counsel
  Provides legal representation for Duke University, Duke University Health System, and Duke Support Corporations and Affiliates on a wide range of legal issues, including: academic matters, health care, intellectual property, corporate matters, finance, real estate, taxation, employment, privacy, security and crisis management. 
• First Flight Venture Center
  One of the nation’s largest and most stable incubators, playing host to more than 37 high-science, high-impact companies annually.
• Hatteras Venture Partners
  Venture capital firm based in Research Triangle Park, NC, with a focus on medical and biopharmaceuticals.
• Hexagon Securities
  Operates as an investment bank and securities firm that provides sales and trading, investment banking, and capital markets services.
• Hub Raleigh
  Entrepreneurial incubator and co-working space.
• IDEA Fund Partners
  One of the most active seed and early stage venture investors in NC and throughout the Southeast. 
• Joystick Labs
  Accelerator for video game studios.
• Lookout Ventures
  Provide capital and services for seed and early stage opportunities.
• Morningstar Law Group
  A business law firm that offers a suite of practices, including corporate, securities, real estate, land use, litigation and intellectual property.
• Morris, Manning & Martin
  Full service law firm, including specializations in public securities offering and venture capital financing.
• Polyglot Systems
  Develops technology solutions that improve communication in health care supporting clinical encounters, patient education and instruction, administrative processes, and the management and dissemination of multi-language documents.
• Red Hat
  Multinational software company providing open-source software products.
• ReverbNation
  Provides music industry professionals, artists, managers, labels, venues, festivals/events with powerful, easy-to-use technology to promote and prosper online.
• RocketBolt
  Startup designed to increase internet hits and activity for customers.  Member of The Startup Factory's fall 2013 cohort.
• Royalty Exchange
  Online marketplace to buy or sell all types of royalties on an efficient, transparent and secure platform.
• SAS
  World's largest business analytics and business intelligence software provider.
• SJF Ventures
  Venture capital partnership focusing on the resource efficiency, sustainability and technology-enhanced services sectors.
• SciQuest
  

  Provides eProcurement solutions for contract management, procurement, and accounts payable professionals to make daily operations efficient through smart automation, and turn the focus on more strategic decisions that impact the bottom line.

• SoarTriangle
  Addresses the proven funding gap facing promising female entrepreneurs starting scalable businesses in the Triangle by connecting these women with advisors, colleagues, ideas and access to capital resources.
• Sports Endeavors
  Catalog for soccer, lacrosse, and rugby gear and uniforms.
• The Startup Factory
  The most highly capitalized technology accelerator in the southeast, runs an intensive, three month program customized for early stage startup companies.
• Tethis
  Applying NCSU patented technology to provide a desalinization process and avoid the environmental hazard resulting from the fracking process used to extract natural gas from shale.
• Triangle Community Foundation
  Manages funds established by individuals, businesses and families. Gives grants to nonprofit organizations and administer a variety of programs for the community’s benefit.
• UNC Chancellor's Office of Innovation & Entrepreneurship
  Works to strengthen UNC’s innovation ecosystem to meet the needs of faculty, students, staff, and community members as they translate their novel ideas into practical benefit and change the world.
• Walker Lambe Rhudy Costley & Gill
  Family law firm offering services from sophisticated tax and financial planning to estate plans incorporating wills, trusts and gifting plans.
• WedPics
  Free photo sharing app for all of your wedding events.
• Windsor Circle
  Award-winning provider of predictive lifecycle and retention marketing software and services for retailers.
• Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice
  Serves a wide range of regional, national and international clients in industries that include health care, life sciences, financial services, commercial real estate, intellectual property/patent, and telecommunications, as well as educational institutions and governmental bodies and agencies.
• Xinray Systems
  Nanotechnology-based field emission x-ray source technology that has a broad range of applications including diagnostic medical imaging, in vivo imaging of small animal models for preclinical cancer studies, security screening, and industrial inspection.
• Zenph Sound Innovations
  Designs and develops software solutions for analyzing music recordings to transform music into data to understand and precisely recreate musical performances.