The Community Law Clinic is one of the nation’s first combined community development-corporate-transactional-intellectual property law clinics and the school’s only primarily non-litigation clinic. Students provide legal start-up services to public interest-oriented entrepreneurs and act as counsel to small businesses, non-profits, charter schools and to major community development corporations (CDC’s) in an effort to help transform blighted communities by creating employment opportunities, supportive local services and institutions, and affordable housing.
 
As counsel to small businesses and non-profits, clinic law students:

• oversee asset purchases, mergers and acquisitions, and development of arts and entertainment projects
• provide legal guidance on trademark, copyright, patent and related intellectual property issues
• lead young non-profit corporations through the complex process of achieving federal recognition as tax-exempt charitable organizations
• negotiate real estate deals, equipment leases and other business contracts

As counsel to charter schools, clinic law students:

• review contracts to ensure compliance with the law 
• negotiate and draft staff and teacher employment contracts

In all of these functions, students learn to blend business and legal advice, and are trained to be sound corporate counsel while representing community businesses and organizations that serve the underrepresented. The clinic has helped launch countless charitable organizations serving New Jersey’s urban poor, and has played a major role in securing safe and affordable housing for hundreds of low-income families.