Quick Takes Joe Green identifies five startup mistakes. Allens aligns with the University of Technology Sydney and Neota Logic for an artificial intelligence competition. Why September is the real new year (plus a rant).

Five Startup Mistakes
Joe Green, Senior Legal Editor (Startups & VC) at Thomson Reuters Practical Law, identifies “the five biggest legal mistakes tech starups cannot afford to make” at Legaltech News:
1: Waiting too long to seek out experienced legal advisors.
2: Overcomplicating legal arrangements.
3. Avoiding hard conversations among co-founders.
4. Running afoul of agreements with previous employers.
5. Violating employment laws.

Read his analysis here. Before joining TR, Green was a senior attorney at Gunderson Dettmer, where he advised startups, entrepreneurs and capital investors.

AI Challenge
Allens, an international law firm (it has an alliance with Linklaters) is teaming up with the law faculty at the University of Technology Sydney and Neota Logic to launch a competition for law students to create artificial intelligence applications that help people address legal problems online. The “Allens Neota UTS Law Tech Challenge for Social Justice” is modeled on a program developed by Professor Tanina Rostain at Georgetown University Law School and Neota Logic, the company explained. The 20 students will work in teams with not-for-profit organizations. The event will start in March, 2017. Information here.

The Circuit: Back to School
September always feels like the real “new year”
—especially for those of us whose lives revolve around academia. In my column for Above The Law,
I preview four September conferences—PREX16; the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section meeting; Clio Cloud Conference; and Walters Kluwer ELM Solutions Users Conference. And I confess, I could not resist a cranky lecture (or should I say, rant.) Find out why here.

Monica Bay is a Fellow at CodeX and a member of the California bar. Twitter: @MonicaBay. Email: mbay@codex.stanford.edu.

Cover image: Clipart.com