Duke and the University of Colorado Offer Entrepreneurial Law LLM

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Duke Law School and the University Of Colorado Law School are launching new programs in “Law and Entrepreneurship” this year. While it is common to find courses and clinics focused on entrepreneurship and emerging companies in a law school curriculum, the programs at Duke and Colorado would be the first LLM programs in the country to focus exclusively on the skills lawyers need to advise start up companies or even become entrepreneurs themselves.

Law professor James Cox will be the faculty director of Duke’s new LLM program. He believes the time is opportune because lawyers are exploring wider career options within their field.

“You’re increasingly finding more law schools graduates who want to go out into the business world rather than go sit behind a desk at a law firm,” he said.

  

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Lawyers advising entrepreneurs need to know some aspects of employment, securities, intellectual property, transactional tax and basic corporate law, according to J.Brad Bernthal, who is overseeing the development of Colorado’s Entrepreneurial Law LLM. Both programs at Duke and Colorado incorporate a mixture of classroom and hands on experience.

Duke’s program will require students to take coursework in accounting and financial theory, strategy which explores organizational behavior and financial strategy, and a course examining law and society as they relate to entrepreneurship. Duke students will complete an externship with an emerging company in the Research Triangle in the Durham/Raleigh area or placed with firms that advise entrepreneurs.

Colorado’s program will require students to complete an externship at one of the numerous companies in the high tech corridor between Boulder and Denver. Students may also participate in the school’s law clinic and have the option of taking cross-disciplinary courses in the business and engineering schools.

Colorado’s LLM will be small, accepting only 3 to 5 students to its program. Duke’s program will be larger, with between 25 and 30 students.

See Top Law Schools Analyzed and Ranked By America’s Top Legal Recruiter Harrison Barnes for more information.