The West Virginia University College of Law Entrepreneurship Innovation and Law Program will host the West Virginia Sesquicentennial Symposium: Celebrating West Virginia Entrepreneurship beginning at noon Wednesday (April 6, 2011). The event will be held in the Marlyn E. Lugar Courtroom at the WVU Law Center in Morgantown.

“What better time to celebrate West Virginia’s entrepreneurial future than now during its Sesquicentennial anniversary year” says Professor Patricia H. Lee, director of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Law Program.

The symposium begins with a keynote address by Dr. John Alexander Williams entitled: “The Creation of West Virginia: Economic and Industrial Implications.”

Following Williams’ lecture, a panel of distinguished speakers will convene at 12:45 p.m. to continue the discussion. The panel includes Lee; James H. Dissen, senior vice president, corporate development, Triana Energy LLC; Dr. Anne Marie Lofaso, associate professor, WVU College of Law; and Grant Bayerle, WVU College of Law Entrepreneurship Law Clinic student attorney and finalist in the 2010-2011 West Virginia Statewide Business Plan Competition and inventor of CardRecs.

Focusing on the future of entrepreneurship in West Virginia, the panel will discuss the topic: “Looking Forward: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Job Creation.” The forum will also provide an opportunity for audience members to ask questions and interact with the panelists.

A reception will follow at 2 p.m. in the WVU Law Center lobby.

To learn more about the keynote speaker and the panelists or to view the live webcast of the event please go to http://law.wvu.edu/elcsymposium.

The Symposium was made possible through the generosity of the following sponsors: West Virginia University College of Law, The WVU College of Law Entrepreneurship Innovation and Law Program, The J.R. Clifford Project of Friends of Blackwater, the West Virginia Humanities Council, and the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation.

This event is hosted in conjunction with the activities of the West Virginia Sesquicentennial on the WVU Campus featuring “A New Home for Liberty – Human Rights, Slavery, and the Creation of West Virginia,” a historical drama, which will take place at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday April 6, 2011, at the WVU Erickson Alumni Center in Morgantown.

The West Virginia University College of Law Entrepreneurship Law Clinic provides a clinical setting for the Entrepreneurship Innovation and Law Program. ELC students provide critically needed legal services of the West Virginia business community by offering start-up companies, small businesses, non-profits, and individual entrepreneurs legal services in the following areas: business organization; licensing; employee and contractor agreements; intellectual property; financing and venture capital planning and negotiation; dispute resolution; and generalized assistance in business formation, planning, and strategy.

Now in its third year of operation, the ELC has helped more than 100 entrepreneurial businesses with legal matters. To learn more about the WVU College of Law ELC, please contact Lee.

-WVU-

bc/04/04/11

CONTACT: Brian Caudill; College of Law
304.293-7439; Brian.Caudill@mail.wvu.edu

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