Last night I attended a forum organized by the Ladies Empowerment and Action Program (LEAP). The panel featured female entrepreneurs from the culinary industry.  Some were chefs, some owned restarurnts, some sold products, and others blogged and educated the public, but their stories were remarkably similar. They told the audience of business students and budding entrepreneurs that they generally didn’t like partners, were wary of investors because they tended to exert too much control over their vision, and that they wished that they had better financial advisors who cared about them and understood their business.  

One panelist, who had received $500,000 in capital from an investor, indicated that she was glad that she had been advised to enter into her contract as though she may end up in litigation.  As a former litigator who now teaches both civil procedure and business associations, I both agree and disagree with that advice.  As a naïve newbie litigator in a large New York firm, I used to joke with the corporate associates that the only reason I needed to understand how their deals were done was so that I could understand how to defend them went they fell apart and the litigation ensued. Now that I am older and wiser I try to focus my students on considering an exit strategy of course, but also on how to ask the right questions so that the parties never have to consider litigation.

Many of my students will likely advise small and midsized businesses as well as large corporations and that’s part of the reason that I stress the importance of a baseline level of understanding of finance and accounting. But how will we prepare them to counsel entrepreneurs who may not see the value in partners or understand how startup capital works?  Perhaps that’s not the job of a lawyer but if the issue comes up, will our graduates know how to provide balanced arguments for  their clients? How will we prepare our students to add value so that accountants don’t provide the (potentially wrong) legal advice to these entrepreneurs or so that their clients don’t just turn to LegalZoom, which reportedly sets up 20% of the LLCs in California? In essence, how do we teach our students to think like business people and lawyers?

Although clinics where students advise entrepreneurs or small businesses are expensive, and skills-based transactions courses aren’t as plentiful as they should be in law schools, these are good starts. I currently try to integrate drafting, negotiation and role-play into my classes when appropriate, but would welcome additional ideas that work.