Logistics

7:30–7:45

Optional Bus Pick Up First-Come First-Served

Pick Up Location:

Downtown Hilton

921 SW 6th, Ave,

Portland, OR 97204

7:45–8:30

Coffee & Networking
Location: LRC Student Lounge

Coffee breaks sponsored by Alt Legal

8:30–8:45

Welcome
Location: LRC Student Lounge

8:45–9:45

Opening Plenary Session

Transactional Lawyering at the Edge

Risk, Fear, Uncertainty, and Institutional Pressure

Moderator:

Susan Felstiner (Lewis and Clark)

Panelists:
Eric Amarante (Tennessee)

Andrea Harrington (St. Mary’s)

Luz Herrera (Texas A&M)

Steve Virgil (Wake Forest)

Location: LRC Student Lounge

9:45–10:00

Break (15 minutes)

10:00–10:45

Panel
The Use of Simulation Exercises in Seminar Sessions
Brian Krumm; Eric Amarante (Tennessee)

This past year, the Transactional Law Clinic at the University of Tennessee, Winston School of Law engaged 36 law students in providing legal services to 87 small businesses and nonprofit organizations across Tennessee. These student attorneys delivered substantial value to communities throughout the state by offering professional counsel on a broad range of transactional matters. Their work included entity formation and corporate governance, intellectual property matters such as trademark prosecution, drafting and negotiating contractual agreements, and resolving contract disputes. Collectively, this year’s activities demonstrate the Clayton Center’s ongoing commitment to experiential learning, community service, and the responsible support of Tennessee’s entrepreneurial and nonprofit sectors.

Faculty recognized, however, that students were not consistently gaining essential training and experience in more sophisticated transactional deals—such as term sheets, venture capital agreements, mergers, and stock or asset purchase agreements—because many clinic client assignments do not provide opportunities for such exposure. To address this gap, Professors Krumm and Amarante have incorporated simulation exercises into their seminars. These exercises draw on hypotheticals used in Baylor Law School’s Closer Competition and scenarios developed for the Law Meets Competitions program by Professor Karl Okimoto at Drexel University Law School and his company, Apprenet, LLC.

Simulation exercises are a critical complement to traditional clinic work because they allow students to practice drafting and negotiating complex agreements in a controlled, realistic environment. Through these exercises, students develop advanced transactional skills—including deal structuring, risk allocation, strategic negotiation, and professional communication—that are essential for success in corporate and transactional law practice. By engaging with these sophisticated scenarios, students gain confidence, sharpen problem-solving abilities, and acquire experience that bridges the gap between academic knowledge and the demands of high-level legal practice.

The proposed presentation will provide examples of the types of hypotheticals used, share student feedback from their experiences, and hopefully stimulate group discussion on how clinics can use simulations to cultivate optimal transactional skills and competencies in law students.

Location: MCC 2

Workshop
Revolutionary Client Selection
Tomica Saul (Rutgers)
Lynnise Pantin (Columbia)

Priya Baskaran (American)
Gowri Krishna (Fordham)

Tara Pomparelli (Rutgers)

This session examines how transactional law clinics can engage in revolutionary client selection to counter the mounting pressures facing diverse entrepreneurs and mission driven nonprofits. As political, economic, and social forces increasingly threaten the sustainability of marginalized business owners and community organizations, clinical programs have a unique opportunity—and responsibility—to be intentional about whom they support and why.

We will explore the spectrum of transactional clinics, from those that adopt a formally “neutral” posture to those that embrace explicitly political commitments rooted in critiques of capitalism and structural inequity. Drawing on theoretical and pedagogical frameworks, the session will highlight how clinics can align client intake and organizational partnerships with justice oriented values while still providing rigorous experiential training.

Location: MCC 3

Panel
Clinic Partnership Models: Public-Facing Legal Information Website
Chris Muzzo; Brandan Jones (NKU Chase)

Kayla Meisner; Maranda Russell (Kentucky Commercialization Ventures)

Kenton Brice (Clio)

This panel discussion and demonstration will explore a collaborative project between the Northern Kentucky University Chase School of Law Small Business and Nonprofit Clinic and state economic-development agencies to design and launch a public-facing website that provides reliable, plain-language legal information for entrepreneurs and small business owners. The platform also enables users to ask basic legal questions that are triaged to clinic students and volunteer attorneys. The presentation will highlight the partnership model and lessons learned from working directly with the state to expand access to transactional legal assistance at scale.

Location: MCC 4

10:45–11:00

Break (15 minutes)

11:00–12:00

Roundtable
Nominal Client Fees and Other Levers to Increase Client Engagement in Transactional Clinics
Michael Murphy (The Ohio State-Moritz)
E. Darryl Walton (Northeastern)
Meg Murphy (The Ohio State-Moritz)
Paige Wilson (Colorado)

Transactional clinics live or die by client engagement. Even with strong intake processes and clear expectations, many clinics still see a familiar and frustrating pattern. Clients go quiet, miss meetings, delay providing key information, or treat the clinic as optional rather than as a real attorney-client relationship. This roundtable explores one specific and increasingly discussed intervention: charging clients a nominal fee or refundable deposit to encourage engagement and follow through, while also generating modest funding for the clinic.

The discussion will test a central question: does a small financial stake change client behavior? We will also examine the trade-offs. What might clinics lose, culturally and mission wise, if they are no longer entirely free? The session will include reflections from clinics that have experimented with client fees, including examples that worked well, worked poorly, or produced mixed results. Participants will also be invited to share models they have used or considered, such as sliding scales, refundable deposits, hardship waivers, or small administrative engagement fees.

Finally, the conversation will broaden beyond fees. The goal is for participants to leave with a practical menu of strategies for improving client engagement and a clearer sense of the ethical, operational, and equity considerations involved.

Location: MCC 2

Panel
Disability Justice Through Self-Employment and Entrepreneurship
Todd Arena (Albany)

How does disability intersect with economic liberation? How does disability justice impact us as transactional attorneys? In this session, dis/abled clinician Todd Arena (Albany) will share the story of his journey, pre- and post-diagnosis in 2021, with the goal of integrating his mid-career life experience and collective identity with his post-diagnosis approach to transactional law practice. Of particular importance are the roles that firm boundaries (with both clients and colleagues) and remote work have played in establishing something akin to a sustainable work-life balance.

How does client selection factor into disability justice? Todd will also highlight how community-based partnerships have enabled clinic successes, while highlighting ongoing challenges inherent to the atomized attorney-client relationship in the context of clients who are often best served by resourceful (and resource-full) community collaboration.

After sharing his story, Todd will invite participation by the room and facilitate via prompts. Discussion will be as unstructured and unfiltered as possible, to allow for the widest range of open communication possible. We need not adhere to strict timelines and will cover as much or as little as participants feel comfortable and interested in sharing.

Location: MCC 3

Workshop
Teaching Executive Functioning to Clinic Students
Nick Smith (Idaho)

Although students are correctly focused on learning to give sound legal advice to satisfy their ethical duty of competence, new (and experienced) attorneys are at least as likely to get into trouble for failing to satisfy their ethical duties of communication and diligence. Executive functioning refers generally to the cognitive processes responsible for things like planning, organization, attention, task initiation, time management, self-control, flexibility, and follow-through. Lapses in executive functioning can mean missed deadlines, delayed updates, and an inability to get started. Executive functions are foundational lawyering skills that can and should be taught in clinics.

This session will include a discussion of and examples of the assessments, instruction, interventions, and resources I have used in my own clinic. The session will also include ample opportunity to share successes and challenges you have had in your own clinics related to executive functions.

Location: MCC 4

12:00–1:00

Lunch

LOCATION: LRC Student Lounge

1:00–1:30

OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK IN THE WOODS / NETWORKING
Meet at LRC Student Lounge

1:30–2:15

Panel
Expanding Access Through Creative Partnerships
Justen Barks (Houston Law Center)
Andrew Dhuey (George Washington)
Monica McCabe (Copyright Claims Board)

This session explores how law clinics expand access to legal services through intentional client recruitment, partnerships with external organizations, and collaboration with the Copyright Claims Board (CCB). Clinical partners will share how they work with nonprofits, arts organizations, and other community partners to reach underserved creators and small businesses, followed by an overview of the CCB and its Pro Bono Assistance Program. Clinics will then discuss their firsthand experience partnering with the CCB, including how CCB matters are integrated into clinical practice and student learning.

Location: MCC 2

Panel
Tech Start-ups, Community Enterprise, and Land: Pedagogical Tensions in Transactional Law Practices
Fermín Mendez; Todd Arena; Sophia Joffe (Albany)

We, like many of the transactional clinical practices across the nation, work with many types of clients in many ways:

• tech start-ups doing capital raises, where students learn the practice of securities and intellectual property law;
• community partnerships with incubators of Black-owned businesses, where students help new business owners navigate entity formation; and
• farmers and marginalized land stewards, where students help clients think about legal issues with alternative land access pathways.

While our clinic houses all of this within the integrated whole of “community economic development,” they often fail to land together at the level of practice. Community Enterprise and Land Access work often requires an approach to collaborative relationship building, implicating Movement Lawyering principles, which can often be experienced as inefficient or suboptimal by an entrepreneurial negotiating posture.

This panel will discuss how we navigate teaching practical skills across these distinct areas and highlight the surprising (or unsurprising) tensions and synergies that come from welcoming many types of clients. Concludes with a Q&A and practice round, inviting the audience to share their experience navigating the issues raised by the panel.

Location: MCC 3

Panel
Talking About Your Feelings in a Cold Corporate World: Teaching Reflection in Transactional Clinics
Katherine Hughes (Fordham)
Erin Cho (Harvard)
Kristi Harshbarger (Drake)
Peter Robau (Pennsylvania Carey)

Transactional clinics regularly ask students to do something that can feel unexpected in a deal-focused environment: slow down, notice what is happening internally, and reflect on how their reactions shape their lawyering. Many students arrive with an implicit model of transactional work as task-driven, with feelings treated as out-of-scope, so structured reflection can feel surprising, performative, or irrelevant. In practice, however, students’ emotions and identities show up constantly in client counseling, teamwork, judgment under uncertainty, and ethical decision-making.

We are a group of newer transactional clinicians who have seen this “surprise gap” play out in our own clinics and are working to develop strategies that build reflective practice as a core professional skill without sacrificing rigor or client service.

This session will focus on sharing and generating practical, clinic-tested methods for inviting students to slow down and speak candidly in ways that strengthen client service. Organized around four areas (reflection papers, case rounds, class participation, and collaboration), we will work in small groups to surface concrete tools and assessment approaches. The goal will be to develop adaptable strategies that connect self-awareness to stronger lawyering and make transactional clinic teaching more engaging, effective, and interesting.

Location: MCC 4

2:15–2:30

Break (15 minutes)

2:30–3:30

Workshop
My First Client Was a Robot: Preparing and Practicing Startup Client Intake Interviews with Generative AI
Laura Norris; Linsey Krolik (Santa Clara)

Emily Gottheimer (Hotshot Legal)

This interactive workshop explores how generative AI tools can serve as a low-stakes rehearsal space for transactional clinic students, helping them build confidence, empathy, and practical skills before they sit across from a real founder.

The session opens with a discussion of trends Hotshot has observed in working with law firms and law schools, laying a foundation for the importance of teaching core skills in the age of AI, as well as some of the creative ways law schools and law firms are meeting the challenge.

Presenters will then share how they have incorporated AI-enabled exercises into the client interview prep process. They will share prompt-development exercises that teach students to use an AI chatbot tool to research clients and craft tailored interview outlines and the methodology for setting up mock intake interview conversations with AI-generated startup founder personas and receiving critical feedback from the AI tool.

Participants will engage directly with sample exercises and prompts, and leave with concrete, classroom-ready teaching materials.

Location: MCC 2

Workshop
Keeping Your Client Pipeline Weird: Building a Sustainable Creative-Client Ecosystem
Jeff Slattery (Texas A&M)

Would you or your students like to serve artists, filmmakers, writers, game developers, fashion designers, musicians, and other creative professionals? Building the systems needed to do so sustainably is crucial and requires attention to a few moving parts. This session offers a practical, three-part blueprint for clinics that want to serve low-income creatives in transactional copyright, trademark, and right of publicity matters without relying on luck. At its core, the session focuses on building a sustainable, community-grounded pipeline of creative clients through repeatable outreach, targeted referral sources, public-facing marketing, and intake systems designed to identify and bring in strong-fit matters at the right volume. It also addresses two additional forms of infrastructure that make that pipeline work over time: helping faculty and students get up to speed on the relevant law and industries efficiently, and building a student pipeline through thoughtful recruitment, matter matching, and training for community-facing representation. Throughout, the presentation treats outreach and intake not only as tools for getting clients, but also as sites of pedagogy, professional identity formation, and relationship-building. Attendees will leave with concrete ideas for building a clinic that is distinctive, sustainable, and responsive to its local creative ecosystem.

Location: MCC 3

Workshop
Journal Entries and Dialogic Discussion

Jesse Gero (NYU)

“I thought I was the only one,” a student confessed. Heads nodded in agreement, and almost every hand went up. It was the first class of the spring semester of the year-long clinic that I was teaching for the first time in 2025-2026. We were an hour into an open and rich discussion of themes that had emerged in the fall semester’s journal entries. I had initiated the discussion because I had wanted to honor the students’ inspiring and even moving journal entries. I had not expected the students’ reactions: They found the common themes reassuring and immediately engaged—they were keen to learn from each other’s hard-won insights. I resolved to return to the discussion in a future seminar session (which was likewise meaningful) and to reflect on means of increasing such student-centered learning next year. This workshop invites participants to join this reflection, drawing on the analysis of dialogic discussion in Emma Sokoloff-Rubin, Centering Student Voices in the Clinic Seminar, 32 CLIN. L. REV. 391 (2026).

Location: MCC 4

3:30–4:00

Break (30 Minutes)

LOCATION: LRC for Snack

4:00–4:45

Roundtable
The Latest & Greatest IP Issues in Business and Sports: A Transactional Law Clinic Perspective
Christopher Mercado; Britten Sessions (Gonzaga)

This presentation draws on IP and business perspectives to address topics such as NIL branding, trademark and licensing strategy, patent considerations for emerging sports technologies, trade secret exposure, ownership disputes, and IP due diligence in transactional settings.

The session focuses on the practical counseling challenges clinics encounter when advising startups, student-athletes, and early-stage ventures. It highlights the need for transactional clinics to treat intellectual property not as a siloed issue, but as an integral part of broader business strategy. Attendees will come away with practical frameworks, illustrative examples, and teaching strategies designed to help students engage with IP as a central asset in contemporary commercial and sports-related enterprises.

Location: MCC 2

Roundtable
A Scalable Hybrid Transactional Clinic Model: Aligning Legal Education, the Bar, and Small Business Growth
Jeannette Eicks; Nicole Killoran (Vermont)

This session presents a scalable transactional clinic model that aligns faculty-supervised student teams, a statewide low bono bar network, and small businesses in need of legal support. Embedded within a broader ecosystem of partners such as SBDC, SCORE, and business incubators, the model integrates structured triage, staged student consultations, and competency-based assessment. Participants will leave with a replicable framework for building clinics that are pedagogically rigorous, operationally sustainable, and responsive to community economic needs. We will highlight a student participant from another law school in California to demonstrate the model’s delivery flexibility.

Location: MCC 3

4:45–5:00

Closing Session / Announcements

Location: LRC Student Lounge

5:00–5:15

Optional Bus Pick

First-Come First-Served

Destination:

Downtown Hilton

921 SW 6th, Ave,

Portland, OR 97204