Experience from Queen Mary’s free legal advice service for digital start-ups was shared at a legal entrepreneurship event in New York.
Patrick Cahill, Solicitor and Co-ordinator of the 'qLegal' service at Queen Mary, joined legal entrepreneurs and visionaries for discussions, demonstrations and networking at the ‘From Bleak House to Geek House’ event at Brooklyn Law School on 4 April 2014.
The symposium focused on the challenges and opportunities that are changing legal education and the practice of law. It featured talks and expert panels on new issues facing the legal system, the changes in law and legal practice that are needed and are underway, and how the future of law and legal practice might look.
Patrick Cahill contributed to the panel ‘American and European Approaches to Experiential Legal Education: Training the Next Generation of Entrepreneurial Lawyers’, in which American and European legal academics and experts focused on experiential law, entrepreneurship, and innovation. They compared their respective approaches, with an eye towards building an innovative and collaborative global system - a network of legal start-up clinics.
Patrick said: "qLegal provides QMUL students with the opportunity to apply their theoretical knowledge of the law in a practical context. It is also a valuable resource to London's Tech City and encourages innovation and ensures economic justice by providing free legal advice when it is most needed.
"It was a great experience listening and learning from US colleagues and to open up an international conversation on clinical legal education and legal support for entrepreneurs."
Brooklyn Law School’s Entrepreneurship Clinic (BLIP) is an associate member of the iLINC Network, a European network of law clinics coordinated by Queen Mary University of London.