Ep 043: LexLab’s Alice Armitage on Teaching Innovation and Mentoring Startups

As director of applied innovation at UC Hastings College of the Law, Alice Armitage oversees two innovation-focused projects at the law school: LexLab, a multifaceted innovation program for students, startups and the broader legal tech community; and Startup Legal Garage, a program offering free legal assistance to early-stage technology and biotech companies.

LexLab has three areas of focus: building a concentration in law and technology for students; setting up an incubator for legal tech startups on campus, a space where students and alumni can interact with entrepreneurs; and hosting regular large and small-scale community events. The incubator recently graduated its first cohort of startups.

In this episode of LawNext, Armitage joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss these programs and her thoughts more broadly about teaching innovation and mentoring startups. She also talks about the challenges startups face, the importance of promoting diversity among startup founders, and the role of technology in enhancing access to justice.

Armitage was the first woman editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal before becoming a tax attorney in Washington, D.C., first with Arnold & Porter and then as international chief counsel at the Internal Revenue Service, where she worked on developing tax policy for complex cross-border financial transactions. She left law for a period to start two companies of her own, before coming to Hastings, where she is also a professor of law.

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