The clinic also will help UND law students gain required experience credits
GRAND FORKS — A new business law clinic through the UND School of Law will help provide legal resources for small businesses, nonprofits and entrepreneurs.
The Business and Nonprofit Law Clinic is sponsored by the law school and UND’s Center of Innovation. The clinic is open to businesses and nonprofits who otherwise could not afford legal services like contract drafting, nonprofit documentation and other legal services. The clinic is an evolution of a service that the Center of Innovation had, but now gives law students an opportunity to receive experiential credits needed to graduate.
Many law students currently receive those credits by clerking for law firms, judges, or state’s attorneys’ offices. The restructuring of the clinic allows for improved oversight from licensed attorneys, allows students to receive course credit and opens the program to those outside UND. The change was unanimously supported by UND’s law school faculty.
“(Oversight is) just a standard that you have, just like you would have for a medical student and a medical resident,” Clinic Director and UND assistant law professor Paul Traynor said. “I approached Dean Brian Pappas with the idea of bringing this in-house to the law school where we could have closer supervision of the students so they didn’t get themselves in trouble with respect for their futures.”
The process to restructure and bring the service more in line with UND law school programming has been in process for around a year. Traynor and part-time UND law instructor Tyler Leverington are both directing the clinic and have been working to fine-tune the business application process and the workflow of the clinic.
Traynor looked at several other clinics across different law schools when creating UND’s and said that a big inspiration for the clinic was a similar one offered by Drake University’s School of Law, which also includes nonprofit help.
“I thought that was a good idea if we’re going to help set up businesses, limited liability corporations, limited partnerships, drafting contracts for these people who need them, it wouldn’t take much of an effort to expand that to small nonprofits that need help,” Traynor said.
The clinic is currently accepting applications from businesses. Students in their second and third year of law school will be working the clinic. There are projects that the clinic will be unable to take on, like litigation, but the clinic is able to refer businesses to other resources and the North Dakota State Bar Association.
The clinic also isn’t intended to compete with practicing attorneys, but rather to help businesses who may not otherwise be able to afford the legal process of creating a business. Rather, Traynor said that the clinic will be able to help those with limited knowledge and resources on the legal process and add to UND’s slate of other law clinics, like its popular family law clinic.