Stanford Law School has launched a new Entrepreneurship Clinic aimed at providing free legal support to early-stage entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and small-business owners who may not have access to professional legal counsel. The clinic began its first quarter this spring and is led by Professor Bernice Grant, who joined Stanford Law School in 2024 after founding a similar program at Fordham Law School.
The clinic offers law students practical experience in transactional law while serving clients that include a vegan event planner, a women’s health technology startup, and an enterprise focused on addressing rising temperatures. Professor Grant said, “There’s no better place to have a clinic for law and entrepreneurship than Stanford Law School, where we can leverage the vast resources of Silicon Valley and build on the entrepreneurship energy that pervades so much of life here. There are so many brilliant founders out there, often with these groundbreaking ideas, who simply don’t have access to lawyers.”
Students participating in the clinic gain exposure to various legal fields such as contracts, corporations, tax, employment law, intellectual property (IP), and securities regulation. According to Grant: “Our students are getting exposed to a remarkably broad range of legal issues. In a single week, they might apply what they’ve learned in contracts, corporations, tax, employment law, IP, and securities regulation. They’re helping clients figure out how to form companies, draft founder agreements, navigate financing, and protect intellectual property, all while tailoring their guidance to real-world business goals.”
The Entrepreneurship Clinic is an evolution of the previous Organizations and Transactions Clinic at Stanford Law School. While the earlier clinic primarily served nonprofits, the reimagined version now addresses a broader spectrum of transactional work with an emphasis on real-world client engagement. Clinical supervising attorney Monica Pelayo works alongside Grant in overseeing student projects.
Stella Zhou (JD ’25), one of eight inaugural clinic students and co-president of the Stanford Law Start-Up Project, assisted a client unfamiliar with startup financing by drafting explanatory materials about Simple Agreements for Future Equity (SAFEs). Zhou explained her approach: “One of my professional responsibilities as a lawyer will be to abide by the client’s decisions concerning the objectives of representation, which means letting my client make the ultimate substantive decision. This motivates me in my everyday legal work to simplify legal concepts and explain situations to my clients in a language they can comprehend.”
Another student participant is Cybele Zhang (JD ’26), who sought out the clinic for practical skills not emphasized in traditional coursework. “Client relation skills are an immensely important part of legal practice, especially in finding and retaining clients and building trust and rapport with them,” Zhang said. Her current projects involve drafting template contracts for Grand & Graham Pets—a San Francisco-based pet-sitting service—and assisting a food allergy awareness organization started by a Stanford undergraduate.
Elizabeth Irwin, founder of Grand & Graham Pets noted: “It’s treating pet care like the serious business it is, not like a casual favor between neighbors. When we elevate industry standards everyone wins – clients sitters and most importantly the pets.”
Pelayo highlighted that many law graduates lack hands-on transactional experience: “In the clinic they get to see how things work in practice – including formatting documents and anticipating client questions. They’re learning how to respond when a founder say walks in with a contract that was drafted using an AI tool. That’s what real-world lawyering looks like.”
Grant concluded that entrepreneurship has transformative potential: “We’re giving students the skills to help their clients build something,” she said. “And in doing so they’re launching more than companies – they’re launching their own careers.”
This article is based on material originally published by Stanford Law School.
