Law School Based Incubators and Access to Justice

At the end of February 2015, law professors, law deans, incubator staff and attorneys, and self-selected others gathered at California Western School of Law for the Second Annual Conference on Law School Incubators and Residency Programs. The incubators that are the subject of this article tend to focus on transition to law practice and access to justice, and some are also working to incorporate technology for the practice of law as a means of enhancing access to justice. As more law schools decide to host, sponsor or offer an incubator, and following our panel discussion at the February 2015 incubator conference, we thought it would be helpful to consider fundamental issues deans grapple with when asked to launch an incubator. This list may not be exhaustive, but it will certainly more quickly advance the conversation, and offers a roadmap of sorts for an incubator business plan