Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law is Redefining the Lawyer-Entrepreneur Relationship
Through curriculum, hands-on experience and programming, the John F. Scarpa Center for Entrepreneurship and Law, Clinic for Law and Entrepreneurship and Intellectual Property Clinic help students discover where law meets business
Numerous entrepreneurial offerings within Villanova Law help students discover their own unique way in which law meets business
When people think about where law meets business, it’s often in the context of tension: lawsuits, crises or conflicts between balancing risk with opportunity.
At Villanova Law, however, that intersection tells a different story. Guided by the philosophy Where Law Meets Business, the school challenges the common misconception that lawyers and entrepreneurs operate at odds. Instead, it prepares JD candidates to view law and business as complementary forces.
“And that’s something we’re taught here from day one,” said Alexis Cheatum ’25 CWSL.
Risky Business
The misconception has some merit if one were to look only at the innate goals of the legal profession and the traditional path to success for many entrepreneurs. Boxed-in thinking and stereotyping have added fuel to the fire.
“As lawyers, we're traditionally viewed as more risk averse,” said Victor Cochrane ’25 CWSL. “This could go wrong. This is a problem. Don't do this. Whereas entrepreneurs are seen as risk-takers. Let's go out and do this, full speed ahead.”
“When people think about the law, a lot of times they think about rules, regulations, classifications and stability. We, as a society, should want stability in our law, and if we don't like the law, there are procedures to change it,” said MarySheila McDonald, JD, the John F. Scarpa Professor of Entrepreneurship and director of the John F. Scarpa Center for Entrepreneurship and Law at Villanova. “Entrepreneurship, on the other hand, is viewed differently. Entrepreneurs are change agents. They're disruptors. They like to push envelopes, and a lot of times, people might think that entrepreneurship and law are at a dissonance.”
The assumption, therefore, is that any blending of the two—whether it be individuals in each profession working together or one person tasked with pursuing both legal and entrepreneurial duties—would result in an “oil and water” scenario. In reality, the way in which they work together can and should be mutually beneficial.
“We know that entrepreneurs need lawyers. Entrepreneurs often get burned by trying to avoid legal help in the beginning, whether it’s because they feel they can’t afford it, or even because of hubris,” said Professor McDonald, who referenced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried as cautionary tales to the latter.
Lawyers, Professor McDonald argues, need entrepreneurs—and an entrepreneurial mindset—just as much. The school’s mission is to teach students that thinking outside the traditional attorney box, while staying within the framework of the law, opens doors to both exciting professional opportunities and innovative solutions.
“We are trying to teach our students to be in charge of their own destiny,” Professor McDonald said. “How can we leverage the law and legal tools to not only assist entrepreneurs to be successful, but to expose our students to the many paths that this beautiful, wonderful educational foundation can take them?”
Coursework and programming reflect an important message of the John F. Scarpa Center for Entrepreneurship and Law: finding a way to say "yes" to clients
The Scarpa Center Says “Yes We Can”
Cochrane was admittedly nervous about beginning law school. With an undergraduate degree in business, he felt the pivot to a law degree would be more challenging than it might have been if he had completed a more traditional, reading-intensive pre-law major like political science or history. His mind was put at ease when he saw the array of entrepreneurial offerings at Villanova Law.
Now, months from graduation, Cochrane is the president of the Entrepreneurship and Law Society and in his second year as a fellow with the John F. Scarpa Center for Entrepreneurship and Law.
The Scarpa Center, founded in 2015, offers groundbreaking doctrinal coursework at the intersection of business and law. It serves as a hub for discussions, hosting dozens of events each year with professionals and scholars and facilitating externship opportunities for students.
Each semester, it also hosts an entrepreneur-in-residence who mentors students. For Fall 2024, that was Johnny Sneh, founder and CEO of Africa’s booming eCommerce hub The SNS Company. For Spring 2025, the position is held by Peter Toolen ’93 VSB, founder and CEO of Benebone.
“The Scarpa Center and its offerings are absolutely one of the reasons I came to Villanova,” said Cochrane. “Coming from a business background, I have unquestionably been able to use those skills a lot more at Villanova law than I would have elsewhere.”
One of the Center’s most important overarching themes, Cochrane noted, is finding ways to say “yes” to clients. “We have founders and CEOs speak with us, and many times the biggest point they share is that they're accustomed to lawyers telling them, ‘No, you can't do that.’ The Scarpa Center emphasizes trying to find a way to say yes to your clients.”
“It’s important to find that ‘yes,’” emphasized Cheatum. “If you aren’t finding that solution, someone else is going to.”
Professor McDonald teaches her students that there are many pathways to that “yes” solution. One approach, she explains, is the ability to anticipate what lies around the corner, citing companies like Airbnb and their navigation of complex legal challenges in launching their service. She also highlights how law itself can be innovative, referencing legal advancements such as the creation of condominiums for sale—bridging the gap between owning a house and renting an apartment—and the development of the limited liability company (LLC).
Most importantly, Professor McDonald reminds students that innovation in law isn’t limited to those working with or as entrepreneurs. Through resources like the Scarpa Center, students are equipped to rethink what it means to be entrepreneurial.
“People tend to think entrepreneurship is about making money,” said Professor McDonald. “But our students learn about social entrepreneurs, policy entrepreneurs, even entrepreneurial nonprofits. Even if you don’t work with any entrepreneurs, how can you be entrepreneurial in your own career? This experience is not to deprogram students but rather give them a different lens through which to look.”
Led by Associate Professor of Law Komal Vaidya, students in the Clinic for Law and Entrepreneurship represent community-based businesses such as nonprofits and cooperatives
Clinical Education with Community-Based Entrepreneurs
For students like Ashley Andino ’25 CWSL, the meaning of “where law meets business” became clear during her time working in the Clinic for Law and Entrepreneurship—one of Villanova Law’s eight in-house legal clinics, where students gain hands-on experience serving real clients.
The Clinic for Law and Entrepreneurship represents community-based entrepreneurial clients, including nonprofits, cooperatives and small businesses with organizational models focused on social, economic and racial equity. Students refine their transactional legal skills by assisting clients on entity choice and formation, contract drafting and review, worker ownership options, regulatory compliance and much more. They also collaborate with community organizations to explore how lawyers can empower communities through transactional law.
“Status quo transactional lawyering has historically been utilized to represent clients who can pay in the furtherance of profit,” said Komal Vaidya, JD, associate professor of law and
director of the Clinic for Law and Entrepreneurship. “The work our students do in this clinic encourages them to think outside of this lane and apply their skills differently. Students leave the clinic with a developed transactional acumen from serving a diverse client base who take various approaches to social change, as well as with reflections on their professional identity within the justice system.”
Andino, who advised a community-based entrepreneur on entity structure and governance, credits the experience with helping her develop as a creative transactional lawyer and well-rounded community lawyer.
“I might have been dealing with a business problem, but that business problem also had a potential social impact,” Andino explained. “With the entrepreneur I represented, there were a lot of corporate laws, but the way that you interpret and implement those laws can really cause significant change and impact at a societal level.”
Cheatum, who hopes to pursue entertainment or fashion law, worked with a small business in an underserved community. The experience clarified the range of entrepreneurial roles lawyers can play, and the scope of application for entertainment law.
“It helped me realize that this specific type of law doesn’t only refer to mega-corporations and that it has so many facets, such as intellectual property, contracts, employment law, and compliance,” Cheatum said.
Taught through an entrepreneurial lens and with both governmental and commercial perspectives, the Intellectual Property Clinic is a unique offering for JD candidates from all undergraduate backgrounds
Intellectual Property Law Through an Entrepreneurial Prism
Villanova’s Intellectual Property (IP) Law Clinic is another unique entrepreneurial offering, where students provide pro bono services related to the preliminary patent and trademark prosecution process. Many of the IP Law Clinic clients are fellow Villanova students from fields like business, nursing and engineering who—like thousands of other young entrepreneurs—are advancing their disciplines with protectable innovations but cannot afford the high cost of preparing and filing patent applications.
Students in the Clinic conduct legal research to evaluate clients’ concepts, assessing their patentability and identifying potential risks, including potential infringement.
“In order to do that, we have to look at the client's problems holistically and find solutions that address as many aspects of that problem as possible,” said Elizabeth Rivette ’25 CWSL. “We are pushed to look beyond what we've learned in our doctrinal courses, beyond the legal theories that we've been taught, and approach these problems from different viewpoints. Being able to do that, I’ve learned, is what makes a good lawyer.”
Rivette credits Waseem Moorad, JD, the Clinic’s inaugural director, and assistant professor of law, as a driving force behind its entrepreneurial mindset. A former supervisory patent examiner at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Professor Moorad’s government and commercial expertise bring a rare perspective to the program, offering students a distinctive blend of insights from both sectors.
“My focus is on teaching the students the importance of IP and entrepreneurship and making sure they understand the law,” Professor Moorad said. “The stereotype is that IP is just for engineers or STEM majors, but the IP Clinic is taught through an entrepreneurial prism. Elizabeth [Rivette], for example, does not come from an engineering or STEM background but has been quite successful in the IP Clinic because of her entrepreneurial mindset.”
Rivette currently works with a company specializing in intellectual property, machine learning, blockchain and cryptocurrency, and has an employment offer to remain with the company after obtaining her degree.
“Everything I have learned in the IP Clinic has translated directly to what I do now and will do in my field,” she said. “Nothing has prepared me better for my career.”
It’s not difficult to see why students like Rivette, Andino, Cheatum and Cochrane brush aside the preconception that lawyers and entrepreneurs are inherently at odds. For them, and many of their classmates, they aren’t just at the crossroads of law and business—they’re thriving at the intersection.
“My generation seems like we are bursting with ideas constantly, and we are in a place now where we have the technology and connectivity to turn dreams into reality pretty quickly,” Cochrane said. “With that comes a need for lawyers who are adept at handling these contemporary challenges. That Villanova is encouraging law students—from the very start of their law education—to think through these problems and develop viable alternatives, as opposed to just one legal answer, shows that the school is moving the legal profession forward in the right way.”