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Free business legal advice helps more than 200 small businesses a year.
Which company form should we choose? Should my customer have a longer cancellation period? How do we write the contract? Yes, on the backdrop of every business idea, there are many important business law questions waiting to be answered. And the stakes need to be set with precision to ensure that the company gets off to the best possible start and can solve the challenges that arise along the way.
Since 2018, entrepreneurs and small businesses across the country have been getting answers to business law questions without facing expensive legal fees or spending precious time trying to solve it themselves.
The organisation Erhvervsjuridisk Retshjælp in Frederiksberg provides free business legal advice. The association’s volunteer legal advisors are students who are in the final part of their Master’s degree programme at Copenhagen Business School (CBS). External lecturers, professors from CBS Law and lawyers are on hand to provide professional expertise and advice. The free counselling service has been developed in collaboration with CBS Law. The purpose of the association is to provide legal advice in the areas of business law taught in the Master of Business Administration programme. Since 2019, the Otto Mønsted Foundation has supported the association’s work on several occasions to ensure the offer and awareness of the free counselling. In the past year alone, 200 companies have taken advantage of this.
The legal aid counsellors meet every Tuesday from 17:00 to 19:30 at the Court in Frederiksberg, which provides the premises. Here, the legal aid students meet in groups and respond in writing to the enquiries submitted by the companies via a form on the legal aid website. Some companies are kind enough to thank the students afterwards for the useful advice, and others return repeatedly – which the students also experience as positive feedback.
Also a winning case for students
Cecilie Ebbe is one of the organisation’s two legal aid managers, who is responsible for running the legal aid service. Cecilie has been active for two years, but with a thesis due, it’s time to pass on the leadership reins.
“Especially in the beginning when I was a “regular” legal aid counsellor, I thought it was educational to try all kinds of different issues, and it wasn’t “just” a legal source you had to deal with, but an ordinary person who had a problem. The coolest thing has probably been the experience of being able to make a difference for the company that approaches you. In addition, I think networking with the other students has been very rewarding, and the assignment as legal aid manager has also been a good way for me to try out leadership,” she says.
Her ‘legal aid colleague’, law student Aleksander Møller Andersen, adds:
“We get the opportunity to apply theory to practically relevant cases, and it’s also a chance to learn about new areas of law. In addition, as legal assistants, we have the opportunity to make a positive contribution to the entrepreneurial environment by providing business law advice so that the entrepreneur can focus on the core business and not the legal issues.”
Facts:
Business Legal Aid was started on the initiative of Copenhagen Business School’s law department CBS LAW and the study board for HA(jur.) and cand.merc.(jur.).