Top

Student Experience

Working at the Transactional Law Clinics with a skilled attorney handling a diverse and extensive caseload, your clinical experience will afford you maximum exposure to — and immersion in — the actual practice of transactional law. Students are exposed to the various challenges faced by clients engaged in transactional activities and to the laws, policies and institutions impacting clients’ ability to succeed. In addition, the clinical experience directly engages students in critical reflection about ethical, strategic and policy dimensions of legal practice and the community effect of their legal counsel.

The Clinics’ practice is varied. Insofar as consistent with our ethical obligations to clients, we seek to tailor students’ clinical experience to meet their individual requirements,experience, goals and expectations. Depending upon students’ expressed preferences and clients’ needs, students typically have opportunities to engage in matters including:

  • Entity formation
  • Contract negotiation and drafting
  • Commercial financing
  • Business acquisition
  • Commercial leasing
  • Licensing and permitting
  • Trademark and copyright
  • Corporate governance and compliance
  • Real estate transactions and development
  • Affordable housing development
  • Zoning
  • Condominium development
  • Other transactional legal work

Key Attributes of the TLC clinical experience:

  • You will have direct responsibility for your clients’ cases, including direct and frequent client contact. Your cases are your cases. You will likely have more direct client contact than you might have for many years after you graduate.
  • You will work under the supervision of an experienced attorney, dedicated to the highest standards of legal practice and your education. Your supervisor will be a mentor and teacher, helping you to learn as much as possible about legal practice from your clinical work.
  • Your work will be engaging and interesting. Transactional Law Clinic students typically work on three to five or more cases during a semester, depending on the number of hours committed to clinical practice. The work is varied.

Some other reasons to consider a Transactional Law clinical experience…

  • “Have the hands-on experience”
  • “Become more skilled at client counseling”
  • “Be exposed to interesting and challenging cases”
  • “I spoke about this clinic in virtually every interview”
  • “Engage my passion for helping others in need”
  • “Feel more confident in my legal skills”
  • “Engage in extensive client interaction and gain all the experience that comes with that”
  • “Gain insight about future career directions”
  • “Explore my interests in – and anxieties of – practice”
  • “Challenge myself by taking on new and unfamiliar types of cases”
  • “Hone my ability to think strategically “
  • “Learn more about how the law actually works and to apply that knowledge to actual cases”

 

‘Hands-on, experiential work starts on Day 1’ in the Transactional Law Clinics By Kaetlyn Conolly, J.D. ’24

An experience that ‘stands out from the rest’ by Alec Johnson, J.D. ’24