This article was written by the Dean of Brooklyn Law School. In it, Dean Allard shares his thoughts about his lack of education during law school regarding entrepreneurship. He also shares how he is trying to change this for current law students at Brooklyn Law through teaching them how to work with and support entrepreneurs.
“Will they be entrepreneurs themselves? Some may. Most probably will not. But all will graduate with an understanding of how to work with entrepreneurs and meet and anticipate their legal needs. They will learn how to say, ‘why not!’ or ‘here’s how,’ and not just, ‘no.'”
This was an interesting read both because it was written by my former dean and because it raises some interesting ideas about law school in general. I find myself disagreeing with the notion that just because entrepreneurship was not taught in law school the way it’s taught in business school that means that law school does not teach us to be entrepreneurs. In fact I don’t even think law school teaches us to be lawyers in the real world either. A lot of the things we learn in law school, in my opinion, really do little more than give us the parameters of what it means to think like a lawyer but not much about how to become an effective lawyer. To do that, real life experience is encouraged. I find the same is true with entrepreneurship.
It’s interesting that Dean Allard does not think that one can be “taught” to be an entrepreneur, but that he thinks one can be taught to support entrepreneurs. I agree. I like the idea that law can support entrepreneurs — even if it’s just helping people navigate through its intricacies, or pointing them towards areas of the law that can protect them (like intellectual property).