Astrea / News / Astrea provides pro bono legal support to promi...

16-04-2021

Astrea provides pro bono legal support to promising start-ups and entrepreneurs within the framework of IUSSTART (KU Leuven)

Work highlight | Levi Van Dijck / Arvind Van Goethem

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Astrea, in cooperation with IUSSTART (KU Leuven), assists promising start-ups and young entrepreneurs advising them on potential legal obstacles in the field of business law (mainly company law, contract law, ICT law, IP law and Data Protection Law). Our commercial law department (CMO) acts as mentor to final-year law students who choose to advise the start-ups as part of their educational program. IUSSTART is an organization that assists student start-ups by providing free legal advice. The goal of IUSSTART is to connect the practical need to orientate projects of young entrepreneurs in the legal landscape with a need for law students to gain a practical and problem-solving learning experience.

Through this initiative, astrea supports the Belgian start-up community and assists students in practical and problem-solving thinking by helping them tackle complex legal issues. These projects also allow astrea to stay connected with the academic research and educational communities. Students who choose the "IUSSTART" master’s thesis field opt for a two-part route consisting of a practical and a theoretical part. This process includes group and individual assignments in collaboration with or under the guidance of lawyers and employees of the KU Leuven Center for IT & IP Law, the Economic Law Department, and the Private Law Department.

Although the educational process is paramount, bringing law students, start-ups, academics, and law firms together is also part of the EU and national policies to support young businesses and stimulate innovation and employment. With this initiative, IUSSTART wants to support entrepreneurship at KU Leuven and in Flanders.

IUSSTART is an amalgamation of the two legal incubators that are present at KU Leuven: the ICT Law Incubator and IUSSTART. The ICT Law Incubator was started by the KU Leuven Center for IT & IP Law in 2013 within the framework of iLinc, a two-year EU project (2013-2015) that aimed to develop an EU network of ICT Law Incubators.

For more information, please click here.

At astrea, Christine De Keersmaeker, Levi Van Dijck and Arvind Van Goethem will coordinate this project.