As an entrepreneur or small business owner, have you ever felt unsure of where or how to access legal expertise to help answer your questions?
An entrepreneur meets with an Ohio attorney, shadowed by a third-year law student, during the 2025 “Ask A Lawyer” program.
On April 3, 2025, entrepreneurs and small business owners gathered at Ohio University’s Chillicothe campus to learn about business entity structures and intellectual property concepts, and to meet one-on-one with an Ohio attorney about legal questions for their businesses or start-up ideas.
The program, “Ask A Lawyer,” was the second of its kind in a collaboration between Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law Entrepreneurial Business Law Clinic (EBLC), the CFAES Center for Cooperatives at OSU South Centers, and the Small Business Development Center at OSU South Centers.
As businesses start and grow, building a team of advisors like an attorney, accountant, tax professional, and insurance advisor, just to name a few, can be helpful. But rural entrepreneurs and business owners face a special challenge finding legal expertise – a shortage of lawyers in their communities. In Ohio, the Ohio Bar estimates that only 6 of Ohio’s 88 counties have at least one practicing lawyer per 700 residents, a threshold estimated to provide residents adequate access to legal services. Those six counties are the centers of Ohio’s major metropolitan areas, while rural areas of the state are considered “underserved by attorneys.”
As the CFAES Center for Cooperatives and other business development programs at OSU South Centers assist entrepreneurs and create educational programs to support cooperative and business development, legal questions often come up. Check out a recording from a recent online learning program hosted by the CFAES Center for Cooperatives, “10 Questions to Ask your Attorney When Building Your Cooperative.”
Third-year law students from Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law Entrepreneurial Business Law Clinic presented on common legal issues for small businesses during the 2025 “Ask A Lawyer” program.
So, in 2022, the team reached out to Paige Wilson, Director of the EBLC at Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law, to brainstorm ways to bring the EBLC’s legal expertise to southern Ohio entrepreneurs. The team developed an education and “quick advice clinic” program with classroom-style learning sessions taught by third-year law students in the EBLC, along with one-on-one appointments with volunteer attorneys for entrepreneurs.
The goal of the program is to help entrepreneurs access no-cost legal information and advice, provide a learning opportunity for law students, and engage volunteer attorneys who want to help grow access to legal services in the region.
Interested in learning more about the “Ask A Lawyer” program or connecting? Reach out to the CFAES Center for Cooperatives at osucooperatives@osu.edu or visit us online at go.osu.edu/cooperatives.
