The Business Law Clinic's Founder, Julie D. Lawton, Professor of Law

The Business Law Clinic (“BLC”), now in its fifth year, was created in 2018 by Professor Julie D. Lawton to provide an in-house clinical experience for law students’ growing interest in Business Law The BLC was the first, and remains the only, in-house legal clinic dedicated solely to transactional business work at DePaul Professor Steven Wiser joined the BLC, first as an adjunct and later as co-director, bringing his many years of private practice, experience in intellectual property, business law, and legal talent to the BLC

Beginning in its second year of operation, Professor Lawton added an internship program to the BLC In this internship program, BLC offers paid internships to graduate students from the University’s College of Business (“COB”) and Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media (“CDM”) to work in collaboration with

BLC law students to provide financial and information security consulting to BLC clients COB and CDM have generously provided funding to support the internship program

Since its founding five years ago, the BLC has hosted 32 law students, 7 COB interns and 5 CDM interns The BLC has represented over 20 small businesses in various legal, business and information security matters BLC Business Interns have conducted financial statement analysis and financial projections, marketing and market share analysis, brand growth and redesign advice, and other business guidance to BLC clients. BLC Tech Interns have completed IT risk assessments, drafted IT security policies, and conducted a training workshop on identifying phishing scams for small business clients. BLC law students have led contract negotiations, drafted and negotiated service and licensing agreements, drafted shareholder and operating agreements, corporate leases, advised on corporate governance, employment, and intellectual property legal matters, and helped with refinancing corporate loans

As of Jan 2023, 100% of BLC law student alumni are employed and are working at firms such as Alvarez & Marsal, Baker McKenzie, Hinshaw & Culbertson, Jenner & Block, Jones Day, Kirkland & Ellis, Miller Canfield, and Sidley Austin

Steven Wiser - Business Law Clinic Director

Steven L. Wiser joined DePaul in 2018. Prior to joining DePaul, he was the Trademark Clinic Director at the University of Illinois Chicago Law School. In private practice for over 20 years, he focused his practice on international and domestic intellectual property and business litigation and transactional matters His transactional work encompassed negotiating and preparing intellectual property and related business agreements and related information technology agreements encompassing U S and European privacy law matters He received his BA and JD from Loyola University Chicago and his LLM in Intellectual Property Law from UIC

The BLC is an immersive two semester course where law students counsel businesses from the Women in Entrepreneurship Institute at DePaul University’s Driehaus College of Business directly under the guidance and supervision of four faculty members The BLC has a student to teahcer ratio of 2:1 The four faculty members bring over 46 years of business law experience to the BLC

During the academic year the course is specifically tailored to provide doctrinal foundations in the areas of, employment, privacy, finance, corporate governance, commercial real estate, mergers & acquisitions, professional conduct, as well as intellectual property based on the type of matters law students will be working on for their clients In addition, law students are provided instruction in the areas of professionalism, lawyer identity, entrepreneurship, negotiation skills, contract drafting, as well as topics concerning diversity, equity, and inclusion

Since its inception in 2018, the BLC has rendered over 600 hours of pro bono legal services to its clients each semester