Since its founding in 2006, the Small Business Law Clinic (SBLC) has paired low income entrepreneurs in Oregon with law student interns, supervised by a practicing attorney. The students provide transactional legal services such as business formation, client contracts, commercial leases, trademark and copyright registration and more. SBLC also matches pro bono attorneys with clients for time-sensitive and specialized needs.
2004: The Idea
In the early 2000s, not many law schools had clinics, and only a few were business transactional law clinics.
“At the time, Lewis & Clark was notably absent from Portland,” remembers David Ellis, former associate dean and director of business law programs. “We knew the need for legal support for entrepreneurs existed, and setting up a legal clinic in downtown Portland was a way to be visible to the city leaders and business community.”
In 2003, Ellis attended a conference at University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) hosted by the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurship, where four business law clinics from different law schools were represented. He began developing the idea of a clinic with Lisa LeSage ’85, who succeeded him as associate dean of business law. LeSage reached out to the four schools to discover what she could about their clinic operations and found that each one was different.
Ellis and LeSage worked with Steve Goebel ’05, a recent graduate who had extensive business education experience from his work at Portland State University, to form a plan for a business law clinic that would serve entrepreneurs.
The Lewis & Clark Law School business law clinic model was an innovative approach, which, unlike the “traditional” law school clinic, would require business owners to pay a small fee on a sliding scale. “It was important that clients have ‘skin in the game’” says LeSage. They also restricted clients to be within 200% of the poverty level to make sure the proposed clinic would not compete with solo practitioners or small firms serving businesses. LeSage also felt it was important to have a focus on providing outreach and services to low income small entrepreneurs traditionally unable to access transactional legal services, especially women, immigrants, and communities of color.
The law school faculty approved the idea, and Dean Jim Huffman gave the OK—as long as it was primarily self-funded.
Goebel remembers he and LeSage taking a three-ring binder with Power Point presentation slides around to city and business leaders and to large and medium-size law firm managing partners to raise money and support. “A few law firms pledged money, but it wasn’t until we met with Mayor Sam Adams that we knew we could make this happen. One of the mayor’s staff members really liked the idea and secured $100,000 from the Portland Economic Development Corporation (now Prosper Portland) and also gave us rent-free space on the ground floor of their EDC building,” said Goebel LeSage remembers numerous visits which Goebel characterized as “putting on the knee pads” to go asking for funds.
2006: Launching the Clinic
Becca Martinez Griffin was the first administrator hired, and recalls fielding calls from prospective clients. “People would call SBLC, and I wouldn’t know where to start, but with Lisa’s connections with all the city and state agencies that help small businesses, we could connect them to the resources they needed, and of course, provide the legal transactional services.”
“One of our first clients was La Arepa, a Venezuelan food cart. Today they are a growing concern with two brick and mortar locations and a catering operation. It’s a great example of how we helped so many Oregonians fulfill their dream of their own business.”
Martinez Griffin’s clinic work also helped her family’s business and forged a lasting relationship with their law student intern. “My husband started a construction business, Casa Bonita, and we were one of the first clients for the clinic. The law student intern who helped us, Levi Johnston ’09, has his own firm now. He is still our attorney today!”
The law school hired Maggie Finerty as the clinic’s first clinical professor. In 2012, Professor Susan Felstiner was hired as the clinical professor and director of the clinic.
Professor Felstiner notes the deep connections the clinic has made with other business development agencies in Oregon. “We had, and continue to have, a rich collaboration with Portland State University and the incubator there, now a separate nonprofit business development support agency called Livelihood Northwest. We have grown to partner with other business development support agencies across Oregon, including the Small Business Development Centers and cultural specific organizations such as the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber, APANO and IRCO.”
Expanding Services
The SBLC has continued to build additional specialized legal services into its offerings for the Portland business community.
In 2013, the SBLC applied for a grant from the Meyer Memorial Fund to expand services through a Staff Attorney Program and an expanded Pro Bono Project. “This enabled us to provide more services to clients, especially those that were time-sensitive or specialized,” explains Felstiner.
In 2014, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) approved the SBLC’s application to be part of the USPTO’s Law School Clinic Certification Program for trademarks. When Joe Makuch, a patent attorney, approached SBLC with an idea to provide patent services for clinic clients, the SBLC became (in 2017) the only USPTO-certified program in Oregon that provides expedited trademark and patent services to clients. “He came to us, saying he wanted to give back,” says Felstiner. “We were delighted to include him and his services at the clinic.”
In 2019, through a grant from the Ford Family Foundation, the SBLC opened its Rural Program, aimed at serving Native American and rural Oregon entrepreneurs. “There is a huge need for low cost legal services in rural areas. We continue to serve rural Oregon through all our programs,” said Felstiner.
Today the SBLC continues to provide its much-needed services to small businesses and nonprofit organizations that otherwise would not have access to an attorney. Since opening in 2006, the SBLC has provided transactional legal assistance to thousands of small businesses. Most of our clients are underrepresented entrepreneurs, with 66% women-owned and many led by immigrants or people of color. By providing these crucial services, the SBLC helps new businesses get started off on the right foot, and helps existing businesses take their business to the next level, contributing to Oregon’s sustainable economic development.
At the same time, the SBLC provides practical skills for Lewis & Clark law students, giving them their first experience of interviewing a client, identifying and explaining possible solutions for their clients and implementing the legal transactional work that’s needed. “The Clinic experience is designed to help them get their first attorney position. Once they graduate, with these skills, and the confidence to use them, they are ready to hit the ground running,” said Prof Felstiner.
“The fact that the SBLC is thriving 20 years later, and has helped so many small businesses become viable, vibrant members of our community providing revenue not just for the individual business owners and their families but for the Oregon communities in which they live, is a testament to the critical need for such services, said LeSage.”Not only that, but the fact that it has trained so many law students who have gone on to represent small businesses throughout Oregon, underscores the importance of practical experience in training the next generation of lawyers. And finally, the SBLC’s success demonstrates that the collaborative work of scores of individuals with unwavering vision and dedication to a mission like the SBLC’s can make anything possible.”
