{"id":520,"date":"2008-01-24T11:03:39","date_gmt":"2008-01-24T15:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/?p=520"},"modified":"2014-11-14T16:01:51","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T21:01:51","slug":"accounting-and-law-students-team-up-to-aid-small-businesses-non-profits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/2008\/01\/accounting-and-law-students-team-up-to-aid-small-businesses-non-profits\/","title":{"rendered":"Accounting and law students team up to aid small businesses, non-profits."},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\n
\"Law
\nFrom left,\u00a0Corally Rodriguez<\/strong>, MACC student;\u00a0Illeana Charry<\/strong>, client;Indyara Andion<\/strong>, law student, and\u00a0Tessie Brunken<\/strong>, professor, Accounting<\/em><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Thanks to an innovative collaboration between the college\u2019s School of Accounting and the College of Law, qualified small businesses and non-profit organizations can receive free accounting services in the latter\u2019s Community Development Clinic. Launched in fall, 2007, the initiative has received $20,000 in support from Rachlin Cohen & Holtz, LLP, one of South Florida’s largest public accounting firms, that will sustain it for two additional semesters.<\/p>\n

Under the program, Master of Accounting (MACC) students work with their law-school peers to offer clients guidance on a range of contract and employment issues. They also attend weekly lectures that draw on their clinic experiences and address topics such as business plan development, entity formation, budgeting, licensing and tax compliance.<\/p>\n

In addition to classroom instruction,\u00a0Sharon Lassar<\/strong>, director, School of Accounting, explained that students also can seek counsel from staff at Rachlin Cohen & Holtz, which has agreed to provide \u201cadvice and confirming opinions\u201d on individual client cases.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a great hands-on learning experience,\u201d said\u00a0Tessie Brunken <\/strong>(EMST \u201986, BBA \u201981), assistant director of student services, School of Accounting, who developed the initiative along with\u00a0Peggy Maisel<\/strong>, associate professor of law and director of the legal clinic. \u201cIt provides accounting students with exposure to legal processes they will likely encounter at some point in their work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maisel, whose receipt of a prestigious Kauffman Professor Award allowed her to expand the clinic by joining forces with the business school, said the initiative highlights the value of \u201cinterdisciplinary education\u201d and the \u201copportunity for accounting and law students to learn from each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

MACC students gain valuable legal insights.<\/em><\/p>\n

The chance to learn legal aspects of business formation was what piqued the interest of\u00a0Coraly Rodriguez<\/strong> (MACC \u201907). Rodriguez, an account supervisor at Miami-based Pinnacle Housing Group, said interacting with law students gave her another lens through which to view her work as an accountant.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou gain a different mindset when you work with those in other fields,\u201d she said. \u201cI now look at documents and information from a broader perspective. Also, it\u2019s great to have people to call when legal issues or questions come up on the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

While acknowledging the intensity of the workload, Rodriguez described the opportunity to work in the clinic as one \u201cthat can\u2019t be passed up. This is a chance to do something positive for your career and for someone who needs it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From left,\u00a0Corally Rodriguez, MACC student;\u00a0Illeana Charry, client;Indyara Andion, law student, and\u00a0Tessie Brunken, professor, Accounting Thanks to an innovative collaboration between the college\u2019s School of Accounting and the College of Law, qualified small businesses and non-profit organizations can receive free accounting services in the latter\u2019s Community Development Clinic. Launched in fall, 2007, the initiative has received […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[488,1149,1154,1643,1801,2114,2388,2555],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24186,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520\/revisions\/24186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}