THE FORUM ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP & LAW
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Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
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Guided by our "Where Law Meets Business" philosophy, Villanova Law's legal education prepares students with academic, professional and practical skills coveted by employers. Central to this approach is Villanova’s focus on experiential learning. Read about our entrepreneurship & law-related opportunities.
Villanova in the Valley: The Law Student’s Perspective
Christo Huntington ’24 recently joined the wider Villanova community in the university’s Villanova in the Valley Program. Christo provided his perspective on the experience.
Over six highly educational days, our cohort of 15 Villanova students, including undergraduate, graduate, and law students, had the opportunity of visiting California-based companies and law firms at the forefront of technology, law, and venture capital.
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The visits offered an invaluable window into the entrepreneurial mindset that makes Silicon Valley tick. Students gained a nuanced understanding of how lawyers, like those at Nixon Peabody, advise and empower entrepreneurs. We learned how attorneys provide indispensable guidance to founders on issues like intellectual property, licensing, privacy, regulatory compliance, and risk mitigation.
However, the most important role startup lawyers play is the balancing act of partnering with entrepreneurs to find solutions and pave a path to "yes", rather than starting with a “no.” Their legal expertise is critical, but their creative problem-solving is what makes them true partners in nurturing innovation.
Beyond insights into legal partnerships, we also saw firsthand how investors, engineers, designers, and business leaders collaborate to transform ideas into world-changing companies. Some of the most memorable visits were to Meta, Google, NVIDIA, and Accel Partners.
At Meta, we got an inside look at how they are pioneering the future of augmented and virtual reality. The enthusiasm for pushing boundaries was palpable. At NVIDIA, we learned about their mind-blowing advancements in AI and computing that are changing what's possible. Google offered inspiration through their famous culture of innovation that empowers employees to create. While Accel Partners gave us an insider's view of venture capital and how they identify the next big breakthroughs to invest in.
The entrepreneurial ethos shone through in the scrappy, iterative, collaborative approaches of those shaping the Silicon Valley ecosystem. I'm tremendously grateful to Villanova alum Michael Gardner for planning the visits and for his 13 years of exceptional contributions to the program, to Ann Miller and Stephen Green for their guidance throughout the program, to Julian Muncan for his collaborative spirit and leadership as student leader, and to Professor MarySheila McDonald and Arup Das for their enthusiastic encouragement and support of my participation in this program.
I also want to thank Maggie Songer and Vanessa Schmidt from the Villanova Career Center for their career guidance and administrative assistance. Participating in Villanova in the Valley has enriched my understanding of the Silicon Valley ecosystem and the exciting opportunities it harbors. I'm eager to leverage these invaluable lessons in my future career.
Learn More about the Scarpa Center's Externship Opportunities
By: Brendan Mullen (Class of 2023)
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The John F. Scarpa Center for Entrepreneurship and Law provides Villanova law students with the opportunity to complement their academic coursework by working directly with an experienced legal practitioner in a real-world learning environment. Students who participate in these legal internships gain valuable, hands-on legal experience working for entrepreneurial attorneys and businesses.
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The current Scarpa Center externships include:
· Saxbys Coffee (in partnership with Blank Rome LLP)
· Ellucian
· Grovara
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Villanova Law students can find availability and applications for Scarpa Center externships on 12Twenty.
Nick Greco ’24 externed for Saxbys Coffee/Blank Rome LLP this past fall and learned the intricate business operations of a coffee company that has evolved into an experiential learning business. Some of Nick’s legal assignments included research and drafting legal memos on labor & employment issues related to student-employees across multiple jurisdictions. In addition, Nick abstracted commercial leases for Saxbys properties.
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Nick, who has prior legal experience working as a paralegal before entering law school, appreciated the prospect of working “in-house” for a business and in conjunction with its outside counsel: Blank Rome.
Nick’s ultimate takeaway from his Saxbys externship was learning “how to explain, in layman’s terms, what the law is or what problems could arise.” Moreover, working at Saxbys made Nick think like an entrepreneur because he had to deeply consider every aspect of the business while keeping the “why” and “end goal” of the organization in his sights.
In addition to the practical business and legal experience of his externship, Nick appreciated the opportunity to learn directly from Founder and CEO, Nick Bayer. Particularly, Nick learned how Saxbys made the pivot from being a coffee company to an experiential learning enterprise. Nick Bayer believes that he is brewing the next generation of entrepreneurs and that coffee is just a conduit to teaching multiple skills needed by future leaders and entrepreneurs. Instrumental to this evolution was Blank Rome partner Dan Rhynhart and his team, with whom Nick was able to work during his externship.
Joe Capone ’24 externed for Ellucian, a global higher-ed technology company. For context, Villanova’s Novasis is powered by Ellucian software. As an extern, Joe assisted Ellucian’s legal team by drafting contracts specifically tailored to their clients’ product needs.
Joe found his work at Ellucian to be a relief from traditional student legal work. Instead, Joe’s work focused on transactional writing and drafting with clarity so that a non-lawyer could easily comprehend his work.
The externship with Ellucian granted Joe the opportunity to create real work product and taught him that “attention to detail is of primary importance when drafting a contract.” Moreover, Joe appreciated the opportunity to have a hybrid work schedule, granting him the flexibility to take MBA courses over the summer while allowing him to attend networking events hosted by Ellucian. Lastly, Joe highly recommends the Ellucian externship to “anyone interested in an introduction to business law.”
Liam Reeves ’24 had the opportunity to work at Grovara, and work alongside Peter Groverman ’10, the Scarpa Center’s Spring 2023 Entrepreneur in Residence. Grovara is a global business that exports American wellness products to developing markets. In addition to his work at Grovara, Liam worked with Better For You Media and Stretch Gallery, two of Groverman's other endeavors.
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As part of his legal externship, Liam had many projects and duties, including drafting contracts and communicating with current and potential clients as well as artists. Liam described the range of work as “one day you might be drafting a contract to sign new talent or some kind of brand agreement and the next day you might be trying to get a new talent to sign that same contract.” This experience allowed Liam to “see both sides of the business.”
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Working for Grovara differed from Liam’s previous legal experience as it required “a good amount of independent work” and “required you to find ways to add value to the company.”
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Liam’s externship with Grovara showed him the value of lawyers in counseling entrepreneurs and businesses as it required balancing aspirational expectations with reality. Liam emphasized that his work at Grovara was a task of creating value and leveraging his legal expertise to drive the business forward.