Two clinical offerings – Entrepreneurial Law Clinic and Glushko-Samuelson Technology Policy Law Clinic – provide opportunities for Colorado Law students to engage in transactional and policy issues.
Two clinical offerings under the Silicon Flatirons umbrella – the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic and the Glushko-Samuelson Technology Policy Law Clinic – provide unique opportunities for Colorado Law students to engage in transactional and policy issues. Clinics are where law school theory meets practice: students gain valuable, real-world experience handling actual clients and legal matters under a professor’s supervision and guidance. In our Entrepreneurial Law Clinic, students work with local start-ups to provide transactional legal help for the formation and development of their businesses. Meanwhile, in the Technology Policy Law Clinic, students advocate in the public interest concerning technology issues in front of regulatory entities, courts, legislatures, and standard setting bodies. Each of these clinics plays a pivotal role in providing practical experience to students while serving Silicon Flatirons’ larger values of civic engagement and social responsibility.
Entrepreneurial Law Clinic
New businesses entail uncertainty and risk for cash-strapped entrepreneurs; yet, when such undertakings succeed, they often drive innovation, create jobs, and create positive spill-over effects in the surrounding community. The University of Colorado Entrepreneurial Law Clinic (“ELC”) supports entrepreneurs’ efforts with free transactional legal services for start-ups in the Front Range area. The ELC supports and trains students for the demands of entrepreneurial – and, more generally, transactional – legal practice, providing entrepreneurs with much needed legal assistance while giving CU law students a hands-on opportunity to make a difference. Typical legal work includes assistance with entity selection, incorporation, contract drafting (such as employment or licensing agreements), and intellectual property protection strategies. ELC students are supervised by Associate Clinical Professor Brad Bernthal and volunteer attorneys of the Boulder office of Hogan & Hartson LLP.
Glushko-Samuelson Technology Policy Law Clinic
Broadband and wireless technologies have ushered in an information revolution with disruptive economic, political, and cultural implications. What is often underappreciated, however, is the profound role that policy-makers perform in promoting or (sometimes) frustrating technological innovation, competition, and the communications architecture of tomorrow. The University of Colorado Technology Law and Policy Clinic (“TLPC”) utilizes lawyering tools to advocate for sound technology policy which promotes the public interest. Led by Associate Clinical Professor Brad Bernthal, the TLPC contributes objective analysis and raises awareness concerning perspectives that should be on policy-makers’ agendas but has escaped proper attention or consideration. The TLPC benefits from a donation by Pam Samuelson and Robert Glushko, as well as support from Patton Boggs LLP. Glushko and Samuelson’s donation enabled Colorado Law to become the third school to host a technology policy clinic in their name, joining American University in Washington, DC, and Boalt Hall (UC-Berkeley).