Their findings were published in Thinking Like Entrepreneurs: qLegal’s Experience of Teaching Law Students to have an Entrepreneurial Mindset for the International Journal of Clinical Legal Education.
qLegal, the pro bono commercial law clinic based at Queen Mary's Centre for Commercial Law Studies, used qualitative case studies to reflect on the importance of students learning about and developing an entrepreneurial mindset, for their own professional development and to service the unmet legal needs of the start-up community.
With the rise of legal technologies and alternative legal services, adopting an entrepreneurial mindset can help law students to navigate the increasingly competitive legal marketplace. It helps them learn valuable attributes such as problem solving, creativity, adaptability and learning from setbacks.
The paper reflects on the challenges faced by qLegal staff, including their own legal training and experience, their obligations to real clients and students’ expectations. It also explores how qLegal is currently developing their postgraduate students’ entrepreneurial mindsets and ways they can expand on teaching this skill in the future.
Read the full paper on International Journal of Clinical Legal Education.
The paper was authored by Eliza Platts-Mills, qLegal Lecturer, and Emily Wapples, qLegal Operations and Project Manager.