Law

Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic

Learn and practice your legal skills alongside some of the country’s top entrepreneurs at a top-10 start-up accelerator. Work with small business owners ready to take their companies to the next level. Join a team that has provided more than $1 million in legal advice to support business and community development for for-profit and non-profit clients in the Greater Cincinnati region.

Do it all at Cincinnati Law’s Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic (ECDC), which launched in 2011 to bridge gaps between the burgeoning innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Cincinnati and the surrounding legal community.

Starting in your third year at Cincinnati Law, you can gain hands-on experience representing local small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs on transactional legal issues critical to their success—and survival.

At ECDC, you’ll help clients with:

  • assistance and counseling on entity selection and formation
  • regulatory compliance and licensing
  • advice on trademark and copyright protection 
  • lease review and negotiation
  • contract preparation, review and negotiation
  • other legal issues confronting small businesses.

 

Under the leadership of Professor Sean Mangan, who directs the Clinic, the ECDC provides you with a one-of-a-kind learning experience that mixes Silicon Valley innovation with individualized client work experience. At the same time, you’ll become an integral part of the economic development of Cincinnati and surrounding communities. 

Working with the ECDC also builds your skills in collaboration, as the Clinic’s work includes important partnerships with the local legal and business communities, local government and community leaders and other colleges at the University of Cincinnati.