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Former Transactional Law Clinics Fellow Therese Rohrbeck Launches New BusinessVenture

L-R: Therese Rohrbeck, Philip Meers

L-R: Therese Rohrbeck, Philip Meers

[Posted on January 27, 2014 in the HLS Clinical and Pro Bono Programs Blog]

 

On Wednesday, HLS alumna and former Transactional Law Clinics Fellow, Therese Rohrbeck ’08, was featured at Harvard’s Start, Run, Grow: Exploring Entrepreneurship event, where she discussed how she started her new venture, Saga Dairy, which is producing Viking Icelandic Yogurt. “The idea was born when my fiancé and I were shopping for yogurt at a whole foods store and noticed the Icelandic yogurt, a new product with a high price tag” said Therese. “We wanted to create something that was more affordable and we started to experiment with making our own yogurt at home.”

Moving from kitchen to mass production, however, was more complicated; from laboratory to product design, to packaging, Therese drew on her skills and knowledge she acquired from her time with the Transactional Law Clinics. As a Fellow, she worked on all kinds of legal transactions with entrepreneurs and small businesses, learning about the legal obstacles and strategies for overcoming them.

“I gained the skills that are the building blocks, necessary to make someone successful” she said. “From for-profit to not-for-profit, from restaurants to selling t-shirts, I learned about the tax issues and the necessary steps to form a viable company.  And if you understand the legal system, you are less intimidated to build something from scratch. My time at the Transactional Law Clinics, not only gave me my legal skills but taught me entrepreneurship, business, and negotiation.”

 

 

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