About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

LOG IN
LOG IN


56 Willamette L. Rev. 425 (2019-2020)
"Building the Case" for the Business Lawyer of Tomorrow: Putting Impact into Practice

handle is hein.journals/willr56 and id is 443 raw text is: BUILDING THE CASE FOR THE BUSINESS LAWYER OF TOMORROW: PUTTING IMPACT INTO PRACTICE DEBORAH BURANDY Abstract: There is growing demand by law students for learning opportuni- ties that build the skills and knowledge necessary to launch a successful legal career representing social entrepreneurs, impact investors, and other forms of business that are seeking to combine purpose and prof- its. At the same time, business-oriented law professors are looking for teaching tools that can assist them in meeting this growing student de- mand while also responding to ABA requirements for providing more experiential courses for law students. It is at this intersection of student demand and law school supply that the development of case studies spanning multiple disciplines could be used in law schools and related fields. Tools such as these can help grow the next generation of busi- ness lawyers who intend to put positive social and environmental im- pact into their legal practices. This article describes the motivations and approaches used in building the first of a series of multidisciplinary case studies for use in classrooms that combine law students, public policy students, and busi- ness students. This first case examines the launch of an impact invest- ment fund. Future case studies will examine the operations of this same impact investment fund over its lfe. Although much has been written about the value of incorporating business case-like teaching tools into t Deborah Burand is a Professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law. She is a faculty co-director of NYU Law's Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship and the founding director of the International Transactions Clinic. She would like to thank her col- league, Professor Scott Taitel at the Wagner School of Public Policy, for his generous collabo- ration and wise contributions to the creation of the MicroBuild Fund case study series. Burand would like to thank Katy Yang, the primary author of the first MicroBuild Fund case study, Launching the MicroBuild Fund, for her excellent research and writing skills, and the research and interviewing support provided by Simone Shaheen. She also thanks Angela Escobar, the author of a companion case study in this series, Legal Services in the Launch of the MicroBuild Fund, for her excellent research and writing skills, and her creativity in developing such a helpful teaching guide for this case. For help in researching this article, she would like to thank NYU Law Student, Julia Kang. 425