The Kauffman Foundation is the first and largest foundation to advance entrepreneurship as a means of creating a society of economically independent and engaged individuals, contributing to the improvement of the community. Focusing on entrepreneurship research, education, technical assistance and policy, the Foundation works to increase the number and success rate of individuals engaged in the process of starting or growing their own business or idea.

As part of this effort, the Foundation developed and launched EshipLaw, the entrepreneurship law section of the Foundation’s website, www.Entrepreneurship.org, approximately seven years ago to both provide information to entrepreneurs regarding legal issues they face in setting up and running a new venture or bringing a product or service to market and to point them to various types of related resources, and serve as a growing repository of well-indexed materials on legal and policy issues, and teaching and operations tools of usefulness to entrepreneurship researchers and classroom and clinical educators. As a result of collaboration with many content contributors, and an editorial team led by Tony Luppino from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law (UMKC), and including faculty from the Georgia State, Lewis & Clark, Northwestern University, N.Y.U., University of Pennsylvania, and Western New England University law schools and the schools of business/management at the University of Notre Dame and Yale University, EshipLaw has become a premier collection of materials and online resources at intersections of law, entrepreneurship, and education. Moreover, its companion listserv has served as a key communications platform for the large network of entrepreneurship law clinics at U.S. law schools that has grown rapidly during EshipLaw’s existence and for faculty from multiple disciplines, in the U.S. and abroad, involved with the legal environment for entrepreneurship.

In 2015, the Foundation recognized that UMKC and its highly regarded entrepreneurship programs and involvement in networks and collaborations with other institutions offered a wealth of opportunities to expand the offerings of EshipLaw and ensure that it remains a valuable resource well into the future. The Foundation has accordingly transferred EshipLaw to UMKC and provided initial funding to enable UMKC to continue providing this valuable resource to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship educators.