Tree Shepherd is a charity established ten years ago to help local people to set up their own enterprises locally. In turn, these business owners give back to their community by creating successful local businesses and creating additional jobs for local people. Tree Shepherd supports a growing community of entrepreneurs in South-East London with their various business needs. These entrepreneurs often have questions related to the law.
We started our conversation with Tree Shepherd in November 2021. After we learnt about each other, our first step was to prepare a workshop for their entrepreneurs. This workshop was delivered by four Public Legal Education (PLE) programme students: Marah Badran, Maryam Gasimova, Bunmi Awofisayo, and Hamda Hussein, on 29 March 2022. They covered the question of “Why do I need to think about the corporate structure of my enterprise?” brilliantly with practical tips and examples. The 90-minute-long presentation sparked the audience members’ interest in learning more about the law and getting answers to their more specific questions.
After our successful workshop, we are excited to continue our collaboration. Sandra Ferguson, the CEO of Tree Shepherd, is keen on creating an online library of basic-level legal toolkits to address some of the most common concerns of business owners. The aim is to make the toolkits accessible and practical, and they should be written in a simple language. The Consultancy Project programme will run a five-week-long summer project. Our partner firm, CMS, will supervise the project.
During this time, six multi-disciplinary teams of students will work on six prototypes covering corporate, employment and intellectual property law questions, using legal design thinking methodology. The multidisciplinary teams were formed under SKETCH and consist of four undergraduate law students from the Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre, two Banking and Finance Master students from qNomics plus 20 qLegal students. The teams will have the opportunity to directly interact with the entrepreneurs to test their ideas.
The first phase of this legal toolkit project will end in July and will continue to run in the autumn term with a different set of students. We will incorporate the feedback we receive from Tree Shepherd and their clients and will finalise the toolkits. We will share further details about this project on our website, social media and blog pages.