The City of Atlanta is home to entrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes. Local pop-up kitchens and food trucks become neighborhood staples, seasonal farmer’s markets grow into year-round community anchors and grassroots leaders build non-profit organizations that serve unmet needs.
Their missions are varied, but their founders all have one thing in common: the need for transactional legal services to help them operate in their communities.
Founded in the spring of 2024 and set to launch this fall, the Community Development & Entrepreneurship Law Clinic (CDELC) at Georgia State University College of Law will help fill the void, by serving as metro Atlanta's sole law school-based transactional law clinic. It will be one of a few places providing free legal services for start-up enterprises.
The clinic took its initial shape through a course proposal from Assistant Professor of Law Julian Hill in 2022, after years of discussion. Supported by faculty from the law school and Georgia State University Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute, Hill’s vision married the university-wide strategic focus on entrepreneurship with existing community development needs.
Rooted in the heart of a city that strives to support small businesses, the CDELC emerged to foster innovative solutions for social enterprises, nonprofit organizations and grassroots coalitions that build solidarity within their communities.
Assistant Professor Julian Hill and Assistant Clinical Professor Susan Chase are co-directors of the Community Development and Entrepreneurship Law Clinic.
Meet the Co-Directors
The clinic's co-directors, Hill and Assistant Clinical Professor Susan Chase, both have extensive backgrounds in community development throughout their careers.
Hill previously served as a clinical teaching fellow and supervising attorney with the Social Enterprise and Nonprofit Law Clinic at Georgetown University Law Center and supervised the Capacity Building practice at TakeRoot Justice, a New York City-based nonprofit that uses law to strengthen grassroots organizing.
“I have had the pleasure of seeing just how helpful an intentional, community-first approach can be for meaningful change,” said Hill. “Though the work has never been perfect, I am optimistic about using those lessons to teach students and, ultimately, help support folks already working to build a resilient and more equitable economy.”
Alongside Hill, Chase is a veteran Legal Aid attorney who practiced in New York City and brings over two decades of experience addressing social injustices.
“I hope that my work in Atlanta will address structural barriers that impede collaboration and give a voice to those that have been historically marginalized so we can advance our collective community,” said Chase.
How it Works
Drawing from their expertise, Hill and Chase have oriented the heart of the CDELC to focus on providing transactional legal services, such as business formation and governance, contract drafting and negotiation, and regulatory compliance to local community leaders who would otherwise be unable to retain expensive legal counsel.
These types of legal services are vital for small businesses, social enterprises, including cooperatives, and nonprofit organizations to thrive. Not having a proper legal structure can cause a setback for those without access to legal resources. By addressing critical legal needs, the clinic equips local organizations to navigate complex legal requirements and keep their organizations in compliance.
"Some approaches to lawyering do not empower clients to take their destinies into their own hands and, instead, keep clients reliant on lawyers,” said Hill. “In some instances, the law makes it difficult for non-lawyers to navigate the legal system.”
Professors Hill and Chase are committed to employing a movement lawyering blueprint in the clinic. Movement lawyering pairs the power of collective action with the communities who have the least access to the legal system, reinforcing their ability to advocate for social transformation from the ground up, rather than the top down.
Training Student Advocates
In addition to the services for the community, the clinic also offers a unique opportunity for students to develop a wide range of practical “hands-on” experience in law school. They will learn interviewing and counseling skills, project management, document review and drafting, and negotiation skills, just to name a few. Students who participate in the clinic are passionate about proactive problem-solving, developing cultural competencies and continuous self-learning.
This approach will leverage their legal skills to support communities by addressing the root causes of their socio-economic challenges and enabling grassroots organizations to build collective economic power.
Allison Bantimba (J.D. ‘25) currently focuses her studies on public interest law and transactional law. Bantimba is the cofounder of Restorative Conferencing Atlanta (RCA), a program with roots in collective agency and community-centered conflict resolution.
Taking classes from Hill introduced Bantimba to creative problem-solving that will help her continue to serve her community. When she learned about the new CDELC, she wanted to be involved.
“It was difficult to imagine how to blend the typically adversarial and sometimes paternalistic nature of the legal profession into my work in restorative practices,” she said. “The clinic will be an opportunity to practice and develop my lawyering skills in an environment rooted in similar values.”
Bantimba views the clinic both as a training ground for herself and a resource for the city. “I believe the clinic will provide an invaluable benefit - as both a tangible resource for entrepreneurs and as an incubator for solidarity and community-focused lawyers in Atlanta,” she said.
Chase sees students like Bantimba as the heart of the clinic and its operations.
“Our students make Georgia State an ideal location for the CDELC,” said Chase. “They are thoughtful, hardworking, creative and committed to using their legal skills to positively impact the world. They are curious about transactional lawyering in ways that go beyond building institutions whose main goal is to make profits. A more comprehensive and community-centered approach is one that students welcome.”
In their future careers, where graduates will handle matters with minimal supervision, these skills are invaluable, and the CDELC will prepare students to take on these challenges, providing them with the experience to set them apart from their peers.
Impacting Communities
Beyond simply providing legal services, the clinic cultivates a deeper understanding of the law's role in community development by contrasting it with the ways the law can and has been used to selectively stifle growing communities.
Chase illustrates her early influence in community development from growing up in Macon, Georgia. “Once a vibrant community of African American professionals and skilled workers, government policies systematically decimated the growth and opportunity for those thriving the community by creating roadblocks to their economic viability while silencing their pleas for self-determination,” she explained.
Placing the tools for economic empowerment in the hands of student attorneys who are equipped to lift up community leaders, shifts long-gatekept resources back to those who need them most.
The CDELC is a vital addition to the city's legal landscape, working to build a more equitable and resilient community, one legal service at a time.
-Written by Lauren Allred