Start-Up Ventures Clinic
The Start-Up Ventures Clinic offers students an experience that combines the Law School’s commitment to entrepreneurial education with a chance to gain valuable practical training.
The clinic provides legal advice and assistance to entrepreneurs and to seed and early stage ventures that have not yet raised significant amounts of outside capital in a wide variety of legal matters including company formation, intellectual property protection, commercialization strategies, and operational issues. Student-attorneys work with actual clients from the thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem on Duke's campus and in the broader community. Supervising professors give guidance on legal issues; for complicated transactional questions, students also can draw on advice from attorneys at local law firms.
Duke’s prime location in the Research Triangle – one of the nation’s most dynamic centers for entrepreneurship – makes it an exciting place to advise start-ups while they’re still in the germination phase. Several clients have moved on to well-known incubator and accelerator programs and others have launched a product or service.
I knew that dealing with clients was not something I would get to do much as a young associate. The clinic enabled me to do that, and learn to speak more confidently about complicated legal concepts in a way that makes sense to an average person.
In the News
Clinic Faculty
Thomas Williams
Senior Lecturing Fellow
Supervising Attorney, Start-Up Ventures Clinic
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