Rural Entrepreneurship Program

The Rural Entrepreneurship Program is an initiative of the UW Law & Entrepreneurship Clinic intended to support entrepreneurship outside of Madison and Milwaukee. You can read about why this is important, an excerpt from the narrative of an Entrepreneur Support Grant from Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation that the Clinic received to support this work.

The goal of the Program is two-fold: first and foremost, to support entrepreneurs through direct action and support for policy initiatives that create opportunity for entrepreneurs in rural Wisconsin; and second, to support law students that are interested in practicing in rural communities.

Entrepreneur support is accomplished in two ways: direct legal action and support for public policy initiatives. Direct legal action and outreach is the basic support that the Program provides. Principally we do this in two ways: by working with community partners to identify entrepreneurs that may need legal support and referring them to the L&E Clinic for free legal services; and, we work with the community partners to bring our Clinic Connect Office Hours as an additional service to programming that is already occurring in the community.

For law students participating in the Rural Entrepreneurship Program, it is a unique opportunity. For students that are interested in working outside of Madison or Milwaukee working in the program can introduce them to community leaders, lawyers, and entrepreneurs in the communities where they want to practice. It also lets the communities meet the law students and see the excellent work that the students of the University of Wisconsin Law School. When students leave law school and go out to practice, they will have a head start.