IJ Taps Inside Experience for HQ & a Fresh Face To Grow the IJ Clinic

By Chip Mellor

Four years ago this summer, Patricia Lee made a move that changed her life and improved the Institute for Justice; she joined IJ to become the first director of the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Law School. With consummate dedication and skill, she made the IJ Clinic one of our organization’s crown jewels and a dynamic educational force at the Law School. In the meantime, IJ has grown and taken on increased litigation, state chapters and nationwide activism that places a premium on efficient management of the entire organization like never before.

To meet this challenge, Patricia is making another move that will have a major impact on the Institute for Justice. In September, she will move her family to Washington, D.C., to become our managing vice president and national director of clinical programs. In her new role, Patricia will oversee much of IJ’s day-to-day operations and become a national spokesperson for entrepreneurship and clinical education. And she will be working tirelessly to ensure a smooth transition for the new director of the IJ Clinic on Entrepreneurship—Joe Holt.

Joe is an exciting new addition to the IJ team, bringing a unique background and passion for the transforming power of entrepreneurship in the inner city. He comes to the IJ Clinic fresh from six years of experience in high-powered corporate law with major Chicago and Denver firms. Before that, he spent 12 years as a Jesuit seminarian and priest. While in private practice, Joe worked with a wide array of clients from Fortune 500 companies to fledgling start-up operations. He always felt a particular excitement and affinity for the start-ups, but it was as a priest that Joe truly came to appreciate the potential of entrepreneurship for addressing the basic unmet human needs he confronted in America’s inner cities and in countries like Nigeria and Nicaragua.

A graduate of Harvard Law School and fluent in six languages, Joe is ideally suited to build on the success of the IJ Clinic and make it an inspirational example for entrepreneurs, students and law schools across America.

We are delighted to welcome Patricia and Joe to their new homes at the Institute for Justice.

Chip Mellor is IJ’s president and general counsel.