Category: Events

By: Samantha Prince

In April 2020, three Dickinson Law student members of the Business Law Society took to Zoom to lead a pop-up clinic for Penn State Launchboxes located in Abington, Berks and Harrisburg! The clinics addressed how to decide whether to license and invention or start a company. Our speakers were Gregory Archibald, Sarah Phillips and Sarah Zomaya, all 3L students about to graduate. We were all excited to still be able to fulfill our mission of helping entrepreneurs despite the shelter-in-place orders.

Following the presentations, law students and I engaged in casual Q&A conversations via chat on Zoom. We were able to answer a lot of great questions!

Special thanks to 2L Alexis Shovel who organized these events! We are already booked for more events in the future, whether they be virtual or in person! Stay tuned.

By: Samantha J. Prince

Marques Ogden is Dickinson Law’s September Entrepreneur of the Month.  He is a former NFL player who is now an author and keynote speaker. You can read more about him and his incredible comeback story in this excellent post written by Rachel Tunney, 2L.

From the moment Marques set foot on campus, students noticed his presence. They were so welcoming. His schedule for the day was full but at the last minute he offered to speak to our 1Ls at a Career Services talk on Professional Identity and Networking. The 1Ls were engaged and had lots of questions for him.  Several of the students found him in the hall after the program to seek his advice regarding self-promotion and personal branding.

“Learn to leverage your inner circle.”

Next stop for Marques was lunch with Professor Stan Brand and several of our Entertainment and Sports Law students. Marques offered the students some great ways to penetrate the sports law market.

 

 

Our Business Law Society held a late afternoon event on Leadership & Entrepreneurship at which Marques was the featured speaker. The engagement was high and the attendance was robust! Marques is a master of knowing his audience. He challenged the students to envision themselves as successful attorneys. He fell into the traditional role of a “professor” using the Socratic method to cold call on students, and nobody seemed to stress about it. Marques was also enthusiastic and personable one-on-one. Several students stayed after his presentation to ask questions on growth and branding. Marques responded with advice and encouragement.

“I wish I would have consulted my legal team before my business went bankrupt.”

Feedback was great! Our own Professor Tiffany Jeffers referred to Marques as a “phenomenal professional growth expert” on Twitter.

Zach Gihorski, 3L, posted on LinkedIn: “Marques had an inspiring and powerful message. One of the best events the law school has hosted since I have been a student!”

In a conversation with me, Professor Stan Brand said that Marques offered the sports law students fantastic information and ideas as to how to break into the sports law market.

It was a great day and we are grateful that Marques could make the time to fulfill his Entrepreneur of the Month duties by spending the day on campus empowering our students.

 

On March 28, 2019, 30 students from my Dickinson Law Entrepreneurship Law: Company Creation class, Dean Gary Gildin, and I visited Legacy Athletic,  in Hanover, PA.  Following our tour of the manufacturing/warehouse facilities, we had a Q&A with co-founder/CEO Paige Wingert ’92 and Legacy’s counsel, Jeremy Frey, partner at Barley Snyder. This was a fun and tremendously valuable experience for all of us!

There were several educational goals of the trip.  What I realized as a practicing attorney was that there are great benefits to seeing the operations of the business one represents.  In class, I emphasize the importance of knowing a business client from the inside.  It’s not enough to simply chat with an executive in a conference room.  Get out of the office and go visit the client!  When Jeremy spoke, he concurred with this philosophy.  He stated that in addition to his visits to Legacy’s facility, he also attended one of their trade shows this year.  The more you know, the better you can understand and represent your client.

Visiting a business client can give you a sense of the company culture, which can also be important to the attorney. When you walk through Legacy’s front door, you find yourself in a vintage-inspired, rustic, well appointed lobby. Walking throughout the building you notice that this decor is all around the company – even in the conference room and meeting area! The presence of the American flag in numerous rooms reminds all who enter that this is a business operating with American pride.

During the tour, we saw many neat items being made – hats, frames, t-shirts, etc!  It was truly fantastic to see the employees creating products right before our eyes.  Everything in the facility was high tech and impressive.  Here you can see that they were making wooden Penn State frames when I passed through!  It was such an interesting process to watch! Be sure to look for these frames next time you are in State College shopping!

Another goal of the trip was to afford the students an opportunity to learn from Paige and Jeremy.  Paige kicked our day off by talking about being an entrepreneur and starting Legacy with his roommate, Mark Landgren ’92, while they were second year law students at Dickinson Law. He talked about early year hardships, what worked and what didn’t, and his leadership style.  Jeremy,  as Legacy counsel for the last 10 years or so, provided outstanding legal insights.  He spoke to the recent merger with collegiate apparel company League, and provided advice to the law students when it comes to representing small businesses.  We were fortunate that these gentlemen had the time to share their experiences with all of us!

As I said above, this was a tremendously valuable trip and a hit with the students.  Additionally, from reading the comments below, I would say that my goals were achieved and even exceeded!

Sarah Phillips ’20, “I am very grateful to Dickinson Law and Professor Prince for organizing the trip to Legacy. It was inspiring to connect with an entrepreneur, who was able to take his legal education from Dickinson Law, and use it to create a successful company. By learning about both the legal and business considerations from Paige, I feel prepared and excited to hopefully practice business law after graduation. I know that the practical skills we learned on our trip – from touring the facility, to learning about management and operations – will better prepare me for practice, and maybe even to run my own company one day.”

Ben Forbes, ’19, “Our tour of Legacy’s facility gave us an up-close and personal look at what a business client might look like. We learned that to understand a business, you need to see the business. Paige and Jeremy provided our class with valuable insight into the relationship of a lawyer and their entrepreneur clients. To be a lawyer you need to do competent work for your client’s business. To be a great lawyer you need to understand your client’s business. We are here to be great lawyers, and the insight we gained from visiting Legacy is a valuable step in that direction.”

Dilawar Ali Fazal, LLM Student from Pakistan, “Being an entrepreneur who has faced struggles, I specifically liked the entrepreneurial struggle which Paige, the CEO of Legacy, talked about in the question answer session. His struggles and business problems resonated with my entrepreneurial struggles and made me realize that the struggles which entrepreneurs face are similar no matter which part of the world they are in.  We are separated by distances, differences in culture, language and values, yet our problems are the same. So is the case with business organizations; no matter where they operate they face similar issues and problems.”

Alana Goycochea, ’20, “As a law student, it is often hard to envision the big picture of how a business works, however, during our tour of Legacy, Paige Wingert allowed us to gain a different perspective by visiting Legacy’s manufacturing facility in person. This experience allowed me to have a much better understanding of what legal issues may arise for businesses. Further, Paige welcomed student’s questions and provided insight into the problems that CEOs encounter on a routine basis.”

Zach Gihorski, ’20, “Hearing Paige’s story really touched me. You often read about the “American Dream” – but Paige really did it. He built a company in the heart of rural America, provided quality good paying blue-collar jobs that support his community every day. Legacy’s impact on the community is something you could tell meant a lot to him. When asked about the next steps for him – his answer was almost entirely focused on making sure the next generation of Legacy’s leadership team was in a place to succeed. It is rare to find leadership like that.”

Zach continued, “From a student perspective, it is such a great opportunity to be able to get out of the classroom and participate in hands-on learning. Walking through the warehouse at Legacy seeing the workers – really brought a lot of the course material from class to life. Plus, having a chance to sit down with the CEO – Paige – who has been with the company since Legacy’s humble beginning and ask him questions was a student experience of a life time. Dickinson Law prides itself on ‘practicing greatness’ so it did not surprise me to find out that Paige was a Dickinson Alumn. However, I was surprised with how open, honest, and transparent he was with my class. It speaks volumes about his character and how much he values being an alumn.”

Our thanks go out to Paige, Jeremy and the entire Legacy family for allowing us to disrupt their day.

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To stay up to date on the very latest happenings at Legacy, follow them on Facebook at: facebook.com/LegacyAthletic or on Instagram at: instagram.com/Legacy92

By: Samantha Prince

Chambersburg, PA.

On February 28, 2019, three Dickinson Law student members of the Business Law Society and I went on the road to the Penn State Mont Alto Launchbox to lead a workshop.  The workshop included a 40-minute presentation entitled Should I Enter into a Franchise? which was led by Ian Brinkman ’19.  Following the presentation, Ian, Greg Archibald ’20 and Alexis Shovel ’21 chatted with attendees and answered their questions. (For those who have authored blog posts, hyperlinks are provided.)

Chancellor Dr. Francis Achampong of Penn State Mont Alto commented after the workshop: “Thank you so much for making the workshop on franchising possible.  Ian did a fantastic job. We hope to continue collaborating; perhaps offer a workshop per year courtesy of the Business Law Society.”

First year law student, Alexis Shovel had this to say: “This workshop provided an
overview of every step of the process, from completing the initial franchising paperwork to who pays for the daily costs of running the franchise. Not only were the benefits of owning and operating a franchise highlighted, but the drawbacks or potential weaknesses were also
emphasized as well.”

Our entrepreneurship law students and the BLS members are ambitious and well positioned to help entrepreneurs and the community through a variety of methods.  Many of the students write for this blog.  Others participate in workshops and provide lectures in classrooms.  All three of these activities further our service and community missions by providing ways that entrepreneurs can gain valuable insight about different areas of the law.  If your organization or class is interested in hosting a workshop or lecture, please either contact us at: https://dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/entrepreneurship-workshops or me directly at sjp15@psu.edu.

The Mont Alto Launchbox is part of the Invent Penn State initiative.  The vision of the LaunchBox is to be a catalyst for entrepreneurship in Franklin County.  Its mission is to: connect, inspire, motivate, assist, and de-risk the efforts of entrepreneurs.  We, at Dickinson Law, are proud to serve as resource and partner of the Mont Alto LaunchBox and the entrepreneurs it works with!

By: Samantha Prince

January 15, 2019: Kamron Abedi, President of the Business Law Society, and I traveled to Exeter Senior High School to meet with Engineering and Business Law students!  We presented on protecting IP and licensing considerations.  We also got to see the super cool inventions that the high school senior engineering students created! They even had prototypes built, which was impressive!

The STEM program at Exeter High is innovative and hands-on.  The program actually starts in middle school.  This is what we need to be seeing across the country if we want the United States to stay competitive in the entrepreneurial and discovery space.

There is no age limit to being an entrepreneur! Thank you Exeter for the visit and the shout-out via twitter!

 

 

 

By: Samantha Prince

On January 14, 2019, Llewellyn King and Linda Gasparello, hosts of the PBS TV show White House Chronicle, and world-renowned journalists, visited Dickinson Law!  Llewellyn and Linda started their day by speaking to first year law students about advocating through writing.  They provided pivotal advice for overcoming writer’s block. “Do not let writing become your enemy.” “Get what is in your head into the reader’s head.”

Throughout the day, they spoke to several faculty members on topics that ran the gambit: cyberlaw, smart cities and the fourth industrial revolution; elder law; international human rights; entrepreneurship, etc.  Linda and Llewellyn also met with a group of our law students to talk about student career aspirations and ways to make a difference.  We look forward to our next visit together.

Notably, Llewellyn owned a publishing business for over 35 years and it was his entrepreneurial endeavors and advice that our Entrepreneurship Law students sought to hear about.  While speaking in our class, he gave the students some great advice on both being entrepreneurs and advising them. I thought I’d pass some of this valuable advice on to you:

What’s important for an entrepreneur … “You must know yourself.”

What should serial entrepreneurs do when they keep coming up with new ideas?  “Serial entrepreneurs should hire well.  You can hire people to manage your business then move on to your next idea.  There are people that are good at managing and they can handle that sort of thing for you.”

Professionals advising entrepreneurs need to “tell you how to do what you want to do.  Not tell you how to run your business.”

While all of this is important advice, the latter cannot be stressed enough.  Lawyers need to determine what the entrepreneur wants to accomplish and propose ways to achieve said accomplishment.  They need to be flexible with the entrepreneur and work as an innovative partner, not as a block to entrepreneurial success.

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Informative Links:

How to build smarter smart cities | White House Chronicle

The Coming Convulsion of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

By: Samantha Prince

Reading, Berks County, PA.  Eight members of our Business Law Society and I traveled to Penn State’s Langan Launchbox last week to lead a workshop designed to inform entrepreneurs and Penn State Berks engineering students on how to decide whether to license an invention or start a company.  The workshop included a presentation entitled “I Created Something – Now What? Licensing and Creating a Start-up” by the President of the Business Law Society, Kamron Abedi ’19.

Following the presentation, law students engaged in casual Q&A conversations with entrepreneurs and students.  There were approximately 45 attendees and each law student spoke with several individuals.  Conversations included: the best entity to create for the entrepreneur, formation documents such as LLC Operating Agreements, what happens when you change a business’ purpose, company name selection, exclusivity in licensing deals, tax ramifications of operating out of your home, and trademark protection.

Some of the exciting innovations that these entrepreneurs are a part of included: a device to assist amputees in putting on socks, a new type of wheelchair that allows for better maneuvering through urban environments, 3D printing technology, and custom-built motorcycles.

Attendees on both sides benefited. Dr. Amir Barakati, Berks Professor of Mechanical Engineering, said, “I believe the presentation was very informative to all my students who attended the event especially to those who intend to turn their ideas into a business.  Providing an opportunity to ask questions and discuss individual experiences after the presentation was also absolutely helpful.”

Law students observed the benefits as well.  Christian Wolgemuth ’20, stated that it was nice to talk with people who “have a specific idea they are trying to foster and grow, and to be able to provide some insight and guidance on how to make it a reality.”

Bob Heary, ’19, stated, “The biggest positive for me was the opportunity to interact with the students who were interested in being, or already were, entrepreneurs. These interactions bring the practice of law to life.”

Greg Archibald ’20, reflected, “The students and entrepreneurs were wonderfully engaging, and everyone seemed to enjoy the experience. I was very excited to have the opportunity to apply what I have learned through class and BLS to help real-life people achieve their business goals. I am looking forward to the next workshop!”

“As a founding member of the Business Law Society, I had a vision of helping aspiring entrepreneurs with their start-up businesses. The workshop was a great opportunity for us as law students to not just educate but build professional relationships with entrepreneurs in our community.” Sarah Zomaya ’20, Business Law Society Vice President.

The Business Law Society members who participated in this event are: Kamron Abedi ‘20, Greg Archibald ‘20, Doris Baxley ‘19, Laura Bortnick ‘19, Bob Heary ‘19, Cameron Plaster ‘19, Christian Wolgemuth ‘20, Sarah Zomaya ’20. For those who have authored blog posts, hyperlinks are provided.

Our entrepreneurship law students and the BLS members are ambitious and well positioned to help entrepreneurs and the community through a variety of methods.  Many of the students write for this blog.  Others participate in workshops and provide lectures in classrooms.  All three of these activities further our service and community missions by providing ways that entrepreneurs can gain valuable insight about different areas of the law.  If your organization or class is interested in hosting a workshop or lecture, please either contact us at: https://dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/entrepreneurship-workshops or me directly at sjp15@psu.edu.

The Langan LaunchBox is a partnership between Penn State Berks and Penn State Health St. Joseph. Founded in April 2016, its goals include: enhancing community and industry relationships; promoting entrepreneurship among Penn State Berks students; utilizing entrepreneurship to accelerate business development in medical and health sectors; and providing resources that encourage entrepreneurship across diverse populations in the City of Reading.