Professor Patience Crowder launched the Economic Justice and Small Business Clinic in Fall 2024

Written By Shan Bates

Professor Patience Crowder launched the Economic Justice and Small Business Clinic (EJSBC) in Fall 2024 at the William S. Boyd School of Law. The objective of the clinic is to provide free transactional (non-litigation) services to low-wealth and under-resourced entrepreneurs, small businesses, artists, nonprofit corporations, and other types of community-based organizations in the Las Vegas Valley. In addition, the EJSBC works with community partners to explore the connections between transactional practice and economic justice strategies that mitigate systemic economic inequities.  

By definition, a law school clinic is a class that upper-level law students take to learn more about a legal practice area in intense study under the guidance of a professor. The EJSBC provides both challenging client work and a rigorous classroom component to expose students to substantive legal concepts related to transactional law practice and its connections to economic justice strategies. Professor Crowder’s year-long clinic is focused on business law, giving students a hands-on experience with personal attention. 

“The reason that the EJSBC clinic is two semesters is to give students an opportunity to get immersed in specific types of transactions from start to finish,” explains Professor Crowder. The clinic’s projects are based on its clients’ schedules, timelines, and calendars, and this gives students the chance to work on multiple projects throughout the year and deepen learning in the spring semester. “Given the nature of the social justice and experiential orientation of the clinic,” she says, “being a student attorney in a clinic is different than being in the traditional law school classroom. Client priorities are the students’ responsibilities, and they can apply doctrine learned in the classroom and the clinic seminar to the client work, allowing practical application and the development of their professional identity.”

Professor Crowder came to Boyd Law to start the EJSBC after teaching similar clinics at the University of Denver, the University of Tulsa, and the University of Baltimore. The only type of clinic that she teaches, Professor Crowder is interested in non-litigation, transactional law and its potential to advance social change. When Boyd Law was looking to launch a clinic in Las Vegas, Professor Crowder jumped at the chance to move closer to her hometown in Sacramento, California. Of Boyd Law, she says, “I’m grateful to join a faculty that is so thoughtful about the student experience in the law school and eager to contribute to that mission.”

As with all of Boyd Law’s clinics, interested students must apply, interview, and be accepted into the EJSBC clinic. Professor Crowder states that, ideally, eight students will work together in pairs as co-counsel. Most co-counsel teams have  one client and one project with a community partner, which could lead to multiple types of matters for the students, based upon client goals. Students could work with small business clients on business formation, counseling, vendor agreement templates, commercial lease agreements, classes for small business owners, and contract work, and a diverse range of other types of projects. Nonprofit clients could be helped to gain 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, learn about board governance, and gain assistance with capacity building or other types of projects. 

“I firmly believe that law schools should be avenues of justice for the communities they are in,” states Professor Crowder. “I want this clinic to be a resource for the surrounding Las Vegas community where people can achieve community development working with lawyers in transactional space. People think of lawyers as litigators, but thinking of things in a transactional manner is a way to achieve social justice.”