Two third-year law students in the Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic (LEC) at Catholic Law, Sabah Vahdatshoar and Edward Reddington, recently served as guest lecturers in the Busch School of Business’s “Venture Lab” course. Vahdatshoar and Reddington led an interactive and practice-oriented presentation that brought real-world legal counseling into the classroom. Using the business concept developed by Isabella Fiore, founder of InterDesign, a company focused on helping design professionals elevate their brand through strategic and high-performing marketing content, the LEC students showed how lawyers analyze and advise early-stage ventures.

The session focused on core legal and business frameworks critical to startup success. Vahdatshoar and Reddington guided students through the strategic considerations of choosing between a C-corporation and a limited liability company (LLC), emphasizing how entity selection impacts venture capital financing, governance, and long-term scalability. They also addressed intellectual property protection, contract structuring, and the fundamentals of raising outside capital. The presentation gave students a practical understanding of how legal decisions shape business outcomes.

Reddington emphasized the importance of investor alignment, noting, “It is important to choose investors whose goals, timeline, and strategy match your long-term vision.” And Vahdatshoar added, “In an age of rapidly evolving technology, it is essential to understand the legal framework behind the contracts you sign and how to effectively protect your work product.” This hands-on demonstration provided the classroom with invaluable insights into the legal framework of successful entrepreneurship.

An extended question-and-answer discussion brought the event to a close, during which students engaged directly with the presenters on their own business ideas and legal issues. This exchange further highlighted the applied and advisory nature of the LEC’s work. As Vahdatshoar reflected, “The discussion was a great way to analyze legal aspects of a business in real time, and counseling the business students on their own ventures was an excellent opportunity to bring our knowledge from the law school to the business school.” Reddington added, “This experience reinforced how central legal judgment is to business success. Being able to translate complex legal concepts into clear, practical guidance for students building their own ventures was incredibly rewarding.”

Reflecting on the collaboration, Fiore shared, “Working with the Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic was an incredibly valuable experience. It was helpful to learn just how important understanding legal decisions can be in shaping a business's foundation and long-term success, especially for an early-stage venture like mine. It showed me how to think strategically about the future of my business—the directions I want it to take, how to protect both myself and my work, and how to support its long-term growth. Sabah and Teddy brought so much knowledge and guidance; it was a pleasure collaborating with them throughout this project.”

Following the event, Francesco Brown, VentureLab@CatholicU Assistant Director, shared, "I thought the session was incredibly helpful to have the students in the course think of their businesses in a new way and through a new lens, and expand their horizons to include this way of thinking about their start-ups." He also added, "Every single student in the class was able to ask a question about their start-up, which I thought was pretty incredible." 

Supporting this commitment to blending theory and practical experience, the Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic, led by Catholic Law’s Professor Alexander Hoffarth, plays a pivotal role in The Catholic University of America’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. The LEC enables student attorneys to engage directly with student-led ventures and local startups, providing transactional and counseling legal services on entity formation, intellectual property, contracts, and employment matters. With hands-on responsibility for client matters and under close faculty supervision, LEC students gain valuable real-world skills, advising a dynamic portfolio that currently includes two startups run by recent Catholic University graduates and one founded by a current undergraduate. Through these initiatives, the LEC exemplifies the vital intersection between legal education and entrepreneurial achievement.