For Lawyers: Host a student or work with our clients
Want to host a law student?
Empower Future Lawyers by Hosting a VLGS Law Student
Are you passionate about mentoring future lawyers and strengthening our future bar? We invite you to host a part-time or full-time law student through the Small Business Law Clinic. By guiding a law student through one of their first introductions to practice, you not only provide them with invaluable mentorship, you also benefit along the way from their fresh perspective, hard work, and enthusiasm. Together, we can help train tomorrow's lawyers to make a lasting impact on our community.
The Value of Hosting a VLGS Law Student
Hosting a field placement student can play a vital role in shaping the next generation of legal professionals.
- Assistance and Support
Law firms can benefit from the assistance of a dedicated and passionate law student. Law students can support the firm with various tasks, such as legal research, drafting, client interviews, and other legal duties. This allows a firm's attorneys to focus on higher-level work while providing an enriching learning experience for the student. - Field Placement Credit
VLGS law students are required to complete an experiential course as part of their academic curriculum. When you host one of our law students, they earn valuable experiential credits, as well as practical legal experience. - Knowledge Exchange Mentoring a law student is valuable in the legal profession. Attorneys can share expertise, insights and strategies gained through years of experience. Students can bring to light for even a seasoned attorney new ways of approaching practice, up-to-date knowledge of recent developments in the law, and an unvarnished and often helpful perspective. The benefit is mutual.
- Client Development Firms who host our law students frequently accept referrals themselves through our low bono partnership with the Vermont Bar Association. If you are able, this provides an opportunity for the student to educate a small business client through the Clinic, and go on to see direct services and advice delivered under your supervision.
- Practical Legal Experience When you host a law student, they apply the knowledge they gained in the classroom to real-life legal scenarios. A field placement supervisor plays a pivotal role in empowering students to bridge the gap between theory and practice.
Participate as a low-bono lawyer for one of our small business clients
Looking to build up your client base with small businesses? In partnership with the Vermont Bar Association, we pay members of the Bar to advise small business owners on a variety of legal needs, and those businesses often go on to become regular clients. Topics might include: entity formation and governance; intellectual property; contracts; liability and insurance; real estate purchase and commercial leasing; land use and regulatory permitting; dissolution, merger, and acquisition; and funding, capital, and investment. We pay a low bono rate of $75.00 per hour, for up to ten hours of services provided to a small business referred through our program.
Why sign up to accept paid referrals?
-
Once you have provided ten hours at a low bono rate to the client, if you want to continue working together you are free to negotiate your rate for further service.
-
We educate business owners on the legal concepts and options they need to know about, typically before they are referred to you, so you will spend less time educating them.
-
Beyond initial needs, referrals may become long-term clients, and you may become an important trusted advisor and resource.
-
By accepting our referrals from underserved or new business owners, you have a direct impact on the most fundamental level of our economy by helping small businesses start up, grow, and thrive
How to sign up:
To be added to the list of attorneys taking referrals through our partnership email Mary Ashcroft at the Vermont Bar Association.
If you have a small business client you think could use education on legal questions, feel free to send them to us to help. Referring them to our educational consults webpage will get them started.