Kickstarting a Carolina Law Entrepreneurship Program

“Clinical education geared to organizational clients, and the business and social entrepreneurs who establish them, is important to large numbers of our students,” says Martin H. Brinkley, dean and Arch T. Allen Distinguished Professor at UNC School of Law.

What does it take to be an entrepreneur? It takes drive, ambition, patience and persistence to identify a need and create a business to fill that need. It also takes access to legal resources.

Early-stage legal counsel is critical to the success of a new for-profit or nonprofit venture. And a new program at Carolina Law will provide just that, filling a consistent gap across all startup settings. The new program will also serve business and social enterprise entrepreneurs on the campuses of UNC-Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, in partnership with UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, NC State University’s Poole College of Management, as well as the innovation and entrepreneurship infrastructures on both campuses. The UNC School of Law also intends to identify one or more economic incubators in underserved parts of North Carolina that the entrepreneurship program can support.

Read the complete Carolina Story from the UNC School of Law…

This is story number 99 in the Carolina Stories 225th Anniversary Edition magazine.

The William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust made a $1.53 million gift to support the establishment of a clinical entrepreneurship program at UNC School of Law. The program will provide rigorous, hands-on training for the next generation of public-spirited lawyers while also filling gaps in North Carolina’s entrepreneurship ecosystem. In addition to the Kenan Trust, the North Carolina General Assembly has appropriated $465,000 in recurring funds to support the program.

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