History of the Program

The Vermont Small Business Law Center, a program of the Vermont Law and Graduate School, supports small businesses’ access to legal services. The Center got its start in 2018 as the Vermont Law School Entrepreneurial Legal Laboratory (VLSell), a clinical program to fill the gap in legal services for small businesses in Vermont while training future lawyers on how to educate and advise their small business clients. Under the leadership of co-founders Jeannette Eicks and Treyvon Martin, VLSell’s hybrid experiential approach saw law students educating small business owners about legal concepts for their business, and working directly with those small businesses under the supervision of a practicing attorney.

Beginning in 2019, VLSell began taking educational referrals from business advisors with the Vermont Small Business Development Center (VtSBDC). Through our partnership with the VtSBDC, we were invited to join the SBA’s Community Navigator Pilot Program (CNPP) as one of the nine business service provider “spokes.” Through CNPP, VLSell developed a new model of business legal services: free education with a team of legal experts, and a no-cost referral to a private attorney for up to ten hours of free legal services.

Due to the success of the CNPP legal services model, VLSell sought congressional funding to allow for continued and uninterrupted legal services for Vermont’s small businesses after CNPP ended. In 2022, thanks to the generous support of Senator Bernie Sanders’ office, Vermont Law and Graduate School received congressionally-directed spending funds, administered by the Small Business Association (SBA), to establish a center for community legal education and small business legal services—our Vermont Small Business Law Center.