283L sec. 001 - Social Enterprise Clinic Seminar (Fall 2025)
Instructor: Alina Ball
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Units: 2
Grading Designation: Credit Only
Mode of Instruction: In-Person
Meeting:
W 3:35 PM - 5:25 PM
Location: Law 240
From August 20, 2025
To November 19, 2025
Course End: November 19, 2025
Enrollment info:
Enrolled: 0
Waitlisted: 0
Enroll Limit: 10
As of: 04/04 07:13 AM
This is the companion seminar to the Social Enterprise Clinic. Students enrolling in the Clinic must enroll in the Seminar. The Social Enterprise Clinic is a transactional law clinic that requires students to critically examine issues of racial and economic justice to achieve their entity client goals. The Clinic serves as outside corporate counsel for social enterprise businesses—for-profit and nonprofit companies that use market-based strategies to address social and environmental issues. The Clinic is geared to students who are interested in exploring the potential power and limitations of market-based methods and thinking critically about the relationships between law, business, and racial equity. The Clinic advises social enterprise clients on a variety of corporate governance, regulatory compliance, contract drafting and analysis, corporate structure, and entity formation matters. Students work collaboratively with social enterprise clients to help them minimize risks and avoid pitfalls as they achieve their social impact goals and implement their theory of change.
The Social Enterprise Clinic Seminar is a two-credit companion course that first-time Social Enterprise Clinic students must take concurrently. This seminar provides an overview of substantive areas in transactional law, with a focus on social enterprise statutes and corporate governance. It also explores various lawyering theories within the corporate and social justice contexts. In addition to the assigned readings, students must analyze their client representations to illustrate their conclusions and theoretical themes of the course.
Admission to Social Enterprise Clinic is by separate application through the Clinical Program portal. Students can access the Clinical Program portal when applications open via this website: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/experiential/clinics/apply-to-the-clinics/ under the section "Access the Clinical Program Application." Applications open 4/8 at 3pm, and are due by noon on 4/15.
Students must enroll in both the seminar and the companion clinical component.
Attendance at the first class is mandatory for all currently enrolled and waitlisted students; any currently enrolled or waitlisted students who are not present on the first day of class (without prior permission of the instructor) will be dropped. The instructor will continue to take attendance throughout the add/drop period and anyone who moves off the waitlist into the class must continue to attend or have prior permission of the instructor in order not to be dropped.
Exam Notes: (None) Series of papers or assignments throughout the semester
(Subject to change by faculty member only through the first two weeks of instruction)
Course Category: Clinics
This course is listed in the following sub-categories:
Business Law
Consumer Law & Economic Justice
Race and Law
Social Justice and Public Interest
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Readers:
No reader.
Books:
Instructor has indicated that no books will be assigned.