For the third time, the Institute for Innovation at UNC School of Law traveled to Kill Devil Hills to help local business owners navigate the legal side of running a company. This time it was Executive Director Aaron Gard’s turn.

Gard spoke to members of Outer Banks Entrepreneurs (OBE), a group founded by Kim Twiddy 14 years ago that now represents more than 60 different types of businesses across chapters in Elizabeth City, the Outer Banks and the Chesapeake-Tidewater area of Virginia.

“We are not attorneys. We do not know North Carolina business law,” Twiddy told the group. “The Institute has been a great asset to our organization to help us follow the law.”

The partnership began almost by accident. Gard first heard about OBE on the radio while on a spring break vacation in the Outer Banks, after the organization ran an ad for one of its events. Impressed, he reached out to Twiddy, and a collaboration was born. Tom Kelley, who directs the Institute’s Community Development Law Clinic, and Dustin Marlan, who directs the Intellectual Property Clinic, led the two sessions that followed before Gard presented on June 15.

Gard opened by polling the room on how many entrepreneurs were already using AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude in their businesses. Most hands went up. For those who weren’t yet, he encouraged them to start experimenting, noting that even attorneys are still catching up with the technology.

Much of the presentation focused on protecting a business before problems arise. Gard walked through the basics of choosing a business name, checking availability through the Secretary of State’s office and securing matching website domains early, even ones a business might not use right away.

He also shared his own experience licensing characters and trademarks for a children’s book project involving Crayola and US Soccer, including a setback when a shelf-space agreement with Crayola unraveled midway through the deal. He balanced that story with a cautionary one about a friend who built an entire product line and logo for a distillery, only to learn someone else already owned the trademark.

“Up front, you need to make sure what you can own,” Gard said. “It doesn’t have to be crazy expensive, but it’ll save you some headaches down the road.”

The Institute’s three clinics — the Intellectual Property Clinic, the Startup NC Law Clinic and the Community Development Law Clinic — are free for clients the Institute has capacity to take on each semester, and pair faculty attorneys with third-year law students who work directly with real clients. The evening closed with a round of audience questions, and Gard pointed members toward the clinics as a resource for the fall semester.

Rachael Francis, owner of R.A.D. Creations 252 LLC, a custom vinyl decal business, told the group about her own experience working with the Institute, which helped her form her LLC and is now handling a trademark application for her logo. Working with OBE gives those students practical legal experience they can’t get in the classroom, while business owners in communities far from Chapel Hill get the help they need.

For Twiddy, the value is concrete. She recalled paying more than $1,000 for a business attorney in Elizabeth City when she first started OBE.

“I only wish I had had this resource when I was starting,” she said.