Clinicians, Practitioners, and Scribes: Drafting Client Work Product in a Small Business Clinic

The recent and rapid growth of transactional clinics, and more specifically small business clinics (SBCs), mandates that time and attention be given to pedagogical methods within this specialized clinical structure. This Article focuses on the drafting component of an SBC. It is often asserted that legal education does not effectively provide students with business-oriented, practical skills training. At the heart of an SBC, is the necessity to prepare appropriate written client work product. SBCs also provide an excellent opportunity for students to acquire interviewing, researching, drafting, counseling, problem-solving, and other areas of expertise. This Article attempts to provide a process for efficiently teaching students drafting skills appropriate for an SBC and, ultimately, for transactional practice. A clinical professor supervising an SBC must balance competing goals of delivering professional client work product, providing an appropriate educational experience for students, and, for some SBCs, fulfilling a social and economic justice role. Based on the diverse legal needs of a small business (e.g., entity formation, intellectual property, employment, tax, and finance), the significant role documentation serves in meeting these needs (e.g., client memoranda, organizational documents, contracts, and employee applications/manuals), and the reality that clinical students must acquire other professional skills during their clinical experience (e.g., problem-solving, researching, interviewing, and counseling), an efficient drafting process is required to facilitate students’ ability to produce real world, client work product in one, or at most two, semesters. The drafting process the Author proposes in this Article borrows from clinical (collaborative/partnership supervision) and legal writing (new rhetoric) pedagogies, and also incorporates the value creation theory that is well-established, if not foundational, in the transactional law community

Preparing Main Street Lawyers: Practicing Without Big Firm Experience

This Article is the transcript of a panel presented at Emory’s Third Biennial Conference on Transactional Education. The panelists advance two premises: First, that law schools need to teach transactional skills because many students will either focus on transactional law or practice general law where transactional skills are necessary; and second, that some of the transactional skills the schools teach should be specific to main street lawyering because a number of students will be main street lawyers. The panelists explain how the transactional skills necessary for main street lawyering differ from skills needed in litigation and big law firms. They offer ideas of approaches and assignments professors can use in classes and clinics to teach law students the transactional skills necessary for main street lawyering

Preparing Main Street Lawyers: Practicing Without Big Firm Experience

This Article is the transcript of a panel presented at Emory’s Third Biennial Conference on Transactional Education. The panelists advance two premises: First, that law schools need to teach transactional skills because many students will either focus on transactional law or practice general law where transactional skills are necessary; and second, that some of the transactional skills the schools teach should be specific to main street lawyering because a number of students will be main street lawyers. The panelists explain how the transactional skills necessary for main street lawyering differ from skills needed in litigation and big law firms. They offer ideas of approaches and assignments professors can use in classes and clinics to teach law students the transactional skills necessary for main street lawyering

Interdisciplinary Transactional Courses

This Article represents a panel presentation on interdisciplinary work in law school transactional courses. The Authors’ focus is on the Small Business Clinic at Western New England University School of Law. Topics covered are: interdisciplinary work and the classroom, professional liability and competency issues in rendering services through a clinic, culture class issues, ethical dilemmas, delivering professional products to the client, and co-curricular opportunities

Interdisciplinary Transactional Courses

This Article represents a panel presentation on interdisciplinary work in law school transactional courses. The Authors’ focus is on the Small Business Clinic at Western New England University School of Law. Topics covered are: interdisciplinary work and the classroom, professional liability and competency issues in rendering services through a clinic, culture class issues, ethical dilemmas, delivering professional products to the client, and co-curricular opportunities

Clinicians, Practitioners, and Scribes: Drafting Client Work Product in a Small Business Clinic

The recent and rapid growth of transactional clinics, and more specifically small business clinics (SBCs), mandates that time and attention be given to pedagogical methods within this specialized clinical structure. This Article focuses on the drafting component of an SBC. It is often asserted that legal education does not effectively provide students with business-oriented, practical skills training. At the heart of an SBC, is the necessity to prepare appropriate written client work product. SBCs also provide an excellent opportunity for students to acquire interviewing, researching, drafting, counseling, problem-solving, and other areas of expertise. This Article attempts to provide a process for efficiently teaching students drafting skills appropriate for an SBC and, ultimately, for transactional practice. A clinical professor supervising an SBC must balance competing goals of delivering professional client work product, providing an appropriate educational experience for students, and, for some SBCs, fulfilling a social and economic justice role. Based on the diverse legal needs of a small business (e.g., entity formation, intellectual property, employment, tax, and finance), the significant role documentation serves in meeting these needs (e.g., client memoranda, organizational documents, contracts, and employee applications/manuals), and the reality that clinical students must acquire other professional skills during their clinical experience (e.g., problem-solving, researching, interviewing, and counseling), an efficient drafting process is required to facilitate students’ ability to produce real world, client work product in one, or at most two, semesters. The drafting process the Author proposes in this Article borrows from clinical (collaborative/partnership supervision) and legal writing (new rhetoric) pedagogies, and also incorporates the value creation theory that is well-established, if not foundational, in the transactional law community

Teaching Transactional Skills in a Clinic

In May 2008, the Center for Transactional Law and Practice at Emory University School of Law held a conference entitled “Teaching Drafting and Transactional Skills—The Basics and Beyond.” This Article reflects the Authors’ discussion of teaching drafting and transactional skills to law students in the context of a law school clinic

Interdisciplinary Transactional Courses

This Article represents a panel presentation on interdisciplinary work in law school transactional courses. The Authors’ focus is on the Small Business Clinic at Western New England University School of Law. Topics covered are: interdisciplinary work and the classroom, professional liability and competency issues in rendering services through a clinic, culture class issues, ethical dilemmas, delivering professional products to the client, and co-curricular opportunities