peterJHS

In a small number of cases it can work - but, you can't expect students to take on legal cases for you for free-99 whenever you like.

This is no different than big companies hiring unpaid interns. Sure it can kinda work in a handful of cases, but it's harmful to exploit people to perform unpaid labor.

I can recall a great many HN articles complaining about companies asking coders to work unpaid in a variety of situations. Working unpaid on learning projects in school is super! Getting experience is great! But, the reality of the situation is there are massively degenerate patent laws at work here and the solution isn't for startups to expect a contingent of students to work there buts off gratis for them.

This article suggests that this is a win-win situation for the startups and law students, but, it's a pretty one-sided deal here. This doesn't work out at all in the long term without unfair exploitation of the unpaid labor of the students.

While helping out gives the students experience, it's not reasonable to consider this any sort of real option beyond an occasional situation in which a startup can solicit a law-student who takes on a single case as part of their curriculum.