Northeastern Law’s clinics, which take place during academic terms under faculty supervision, complement the school’s signature Cooperative Legal Education Program, through which students work in full-time positions under the direction of attorneys and judges across the globe. Together, clinics and co-ops provide Northeastern law students with unparalleled opportunities to gain practical training year-round while working for a wide range of clients and organizations.

The community need for services like those offered by the CBC is profound. As Boston’s women-, Black- and Latino-owned businesses transition to the post-pandemic economy, the news is decidedly mixed. A recent Wells Fargo report counts Boston among the top 10 US cities for women entrepreneurs, but a report from The Boston Foundation finds that Black- and Latino-owned businesses in the city, which suffered disproportionately during the pandemic, continue to struggle. They received less help than white-owned businesses from the federal safety net Paycheck Protection Program, and they have more trouble attracting investment. “All told,” the report says, “entrepreneurs of Massachusetts have $574 million of unmet capital demand annually.”

The CBC is part of an ecosystem of Boston organizations working on business development in many economically disadvantaged communities. Before Walton took over as clinic director two years ago, the CBC primarily served Lynn, a small city nine miles north of Boston. Without abandoning the needs of the greater metropolitan area, Walton has refocused the clinic on the Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan neighborhoods of Boston. “We want to help those who are closest to us and those who have traditionally been excluded from legal services,” says Walton, who was once himself a small business owner and knows firsthand how daunting it can be to build a business while navigating its legal requirements. “We’re hoping to show that Northeastern is a good neighbor,” he says. The change also benefits students, allowing them more in-person encounters with clients.

One of Walton’s goals is to rethink impact. “The Community Business Clinic is a nine-person law firm. It’s myself and eight students. We’re limited in our capacity to do direct representations,” he says. “So we’re looking at other opportunities to expand that capacity through avenues like community presentations and the creation of resources that, once they’re completed, live on and reach more people.” Students have presented to community groups, and they are developing a Q&A series that will be public on the CBC’s website. Walton envisions the website providing information in several languages, along with basic legal forms and links to additional resources.

Walton is also expanding the CBC’s range of community partnerships. With Northeastern Crossing, a university initiative benefiting residents in surrounding Boston neighborhoods, the CBC is holding one-day clinics for local existing and aspiring nonprofits and accepting several as longer-term clients. In response to a new state program covering doula care for maternity patients, the CBC is providing legal advice to doulas (professionals who offer emotional, physical and informational support to new and expectant parents before, during and after birth). Walton also serves as a faculty mentor to a legal fellow embedded with Northeastern’s Roux Institute, which seeks to build a technology innovation corridor between Boston and Portland, Maine.

In addition to serving community clients like makeup artist Laurendeau and the aspiring bakery, photography, cleaning, dance studio, composting and other micro-enterprises of Boston, the CBC counsels Northeastern undergraduate students who are forming STEM- or tech-based startups. One of them is Hannah Ung DMSB ’23, a business student who founded Boxy, an app connecting college students to homeowners with extra space to keep their stuff over summer break — sort of an Airbnb for storage. The CBC helped Ung organize Boxy as a C corporation, reviewed its terms and conditions agreement, and ensured that Boxy had a sturdy legal springboard to propel it forward.

As a self-funding entrepreneur, Ung says, “I found it extremely helpful because I am aware that these services could cost a lot of money.” The clinic students, she says, “were a pleasure to work with. They taught me a lot in terms of the legality of things that I wasn’t really aware of, even down to the difference between an LLC versus a C corporation.”

CBC student Samantha Rodriguez ’24, who advised Ung, embraced helping her clients set up their businesses for success. “I was impressed with the sheer level of creativity and the fact that someone could take something so simple and make a very innovative business model out of it,” Rodriguez says. “Sitting in a classroom, learning the law and applying it on a final exam is a very different thing than actually doing the work and interacting with clients. I enjoyed my classes, but my experiences with the clinic and the opportunity to form working relationships was the highlight of my time at Northeastern.” What Rodriguez describes flows naturally from Walton’s cultivation of the CBC’s mission: enhancing student learning while serving those whose legal needs might otherwise go unmet. “I’m proud of the work that our students have done and will continue to do,” Walton says.