In a trendy residential district of Tokyo, a new kind of startup has taken root. Every so often, Japanese- and English-speaking legal advisers meet with entrepreneurs to dispense free one-on-one legal guidance.
Called StartEd, the service now operates in Tokyo, New York, London and Dublin. Skeptical of anything free, I jumped on the Odakyu Line one evening to make the journey to a StartEd event and "kick the tires" of the legal lifeline.
StartEd was launched as a social enterprise three years ago by two young attorneys with ties to academia, Naoise Gaffney and Eric Klotz. Klotz had been teaching at City Law School, part of City University London. Through StartEd, City students gain valuable face-to-face experience with would-be clients by giving unpaid but supervised advice to entrepreneurs in a client-like environment. The first beneficiaries were entrepreneurs clustered around Silicon Roundabout, the high-tech area near Old Street Station in London's East End. City Law School promotes the service to its students as an internship opportunity.