A student from the Clinton School worked with the William J. Clinton Foundation and other major nonprofit organizations to examine nonprofit legal practices and needs – a developing area of legal work.
The project set out to identify and define any common best practices for nonprofit legal professionals, resources or networks that may assist practitioners and identify a potential network of nonprofit legal practitioners interested in collaboration.
Clinton School student Andrew Morgan of Spokane, Wash., interviewed general counsel for five major nonprofit organizations and worked in coordination with the Clinton Foundation’s in-house counsel to develop a thorough understanding of how legal practices at nonprofits compare to traditional practices and what makes nonprofit counsel unique.
In 2011, Scott M. Curran, assistant general counsel at the Clinton Foundation, designed the project in collaboration with Bruce Lindsey, CEO and general counsel of the foundation with a simple question in mind: how do other in-house nonprofit legal departments function?
“For years I had been curious if other attorneys working for unique nonprofit organizations like ours are similarly managing their legal work,” Curran said. “This is a unique and growing area of the law, and I wondered what networks or resources might be available or could be developed that would be beneficial to in-house lawyers at nonprofits.”
Morgan, a concurrent-degree student at the Clinton School and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law, was excited about the project’s overlap of his passions: public service and nonprofit law.
“I have been very encouraged by the excitement generated by the interviews and outreach,” Morgan said. “I’m hopeful that this study will have an impact on this developing area of legal practice.”
Morgan completed the project as his final field service requirement in the Clinton School’s Master of Public Service degree program.
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