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n the Community Development Clinic, students provide transactional and corporate counsel legal services to community development corporations, other community and arts-based nonprofits and entrepreneurs. The CDC is a six credit hour, year long clinic and is taught by Professors Ken Margolis and Matt Rossman.


The caseload of a typical CDC student, over the course of a year, could include:

• assisting a “startup” organization or business with formation issues B for example, choice of entity, preparing governing documents, establishing a board of directors and applying for tax-exempt status;
• assisting an existing organization or business with legal issues related to its operations B for example, drafting or reviewing a contract, identifying and protecting intellectual property and counseling the client on compliance issues or the ramifications of embarking on a new venture; and
• presenting an overview of legal issues that affect small businesses to a group of entrepreneurs or researching and preparing a presentation on larger issues or policies affecting the local nonprofit community.

The mission of the CDC is to provide both a service to the community (by assisting in local community and economic development efforts) and an opportunity for students to learn “hands-on” the core lawyering skills necessary for transactional and business law practice. These skills include interviewing; researching; negotiating; counseling; drafting contracts, business entity documents and client correspondence; understanding regulatory and tax provisions and advising clients on related compliance issues; and carrying out transactions.