Today was the day – the first session of office hours for the uOttawa Startup Law Clinic, and we are so excited to connect with entrepreneurs and founders.

As a student, this is a truly unique opportunity for me to gain hands-on experience all the while supporting the dynamic Ottawa startup community. Below, I reflect on my experience interviewing and providing legal information to founders.

The Lead-up to Office Hours

To prepare for our office hours, we, as Student Caseworkers, participated in a training session and several seminar-style lectures. In both these formats, we were able to build our knowledge in corporate, securities, employment, and intellectual property law – the four areas of law that tend to impact startups the most. We also did a mock founder interview and reviewed an employment contract with the goal of building our practical skills.

Beyond knowing the law and honing our practical skills, we took time to review the information founders submitted to us in advance of the session. The night before our office hours session, my colleague and I got on a call to discuss the founders’ legal issues and what information we thought was relevant to pass on, and we developed a game plan for the meetings. We wanted to stay flexible during the meeting so we could listen to the founder and provide information based on what mattered to them. As such, we used our previous research to orient ourselves, but we did not limit the conversation to the areas we researched in advance.

Day Of: Interview Time!

This was my first time conducting a legal interview outside of the classroom environment – and boy, was it ever interesting!

Before starting law school, I worked in procurement, which meant that I provided direct support to client teams, often communicating with clients multiple times a day. In this sense, connecting businesses with useful information is not new to me. However, conducting legal interviews is a very different skill set! In my previous role, I had a formulaic approach to speaking with clients – what is the requirement, how will we procure it, and when must we have it by. In the context of a legal interview, however, I had to be far more agile. The legal interview was far more organic than the client consultations I was used to in my previous role. Here, I listened to the questions and concerns our founders highlighted and provided them with relevant information.

Remaining agile meant that where we could not provide the information on the spot, my colleague and I took away an action item to perform some research for our founders. This let us progress through our conversation while not dwelling on something we may not have known. This was a great lesson for me, as I was able to see that it is okay to not have the answer on the spot.

Personally, I found running the interview to be both humbling and extremely rewarding. In one sense it was humbling as I was able to see how much skill is associated with interviewing. In legal interviews, the interviewer must simultaneously listen to the client, think about the application of the law, and help guide the interview such that it has a logical or useful flow. This is a lot to manage, and it is something that I imagine is developed with time! On the other hand, the experience was very rewarding as I was able to share my knowledge and help local businesses. Founders truly have my admiration – they must wear every hat in their business as they get it off the ground. If I can help them even remotely, then that means a lot to me.

Lastly, I really enjoyed the experience of asking founders about their businesses and connecting the dots with broader legal principles.

After the Office Hours: What Comes Next?

Though the office hours session is in the rearview mirror, this does not mean we are done. Now, my colleague and I will shift into follow-up mode. This means we will conduct the research we took away as action items. We will provide the founders with a summary of our conversation, our research findings, and any relevant materials we can share.

Our next clinic seminar will give us a chance to reflect on our experiences during office hours, with a focus on how we can continue developing our skills as legal practitioners. This is a phenomenal learning experience, and I am looking forward to hearing about my peers’ experience and how they tackled their respective sessions.

There are still openings with the Student Caseworkers of the uOttawa Startup Law Clinic in September and October. If you are a founder looking for some legal information as you grow your business, we want to connect with you!

Book your free office hours appointment today!