U. of C. program furnishes help for firms

December 4, 2002

BY SANDRA GUY SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Brother and sister entrepreneurs McKinley and Carmen Wells have watched their furniture company's sales jump about 25 percent annually for three years.

Despite the weak economy, McKinley Design Ltd. has succeeded in satisfying customers and attracting word-of-mouth clients, partly due to a Web site ( www.mcdchicago.com ) that provides customers with a portfolio of McKinley Wells' hand-sculpted pieces.

The Web site, now in its third redesign, debuted 2-1/2 years ago.

"It was an amazing leap for us," said McKinley Wells, the company's 33-year-old founder and principal designer. "We started picking up attention throughout the United States, in Canada and even from folks in Europe who started talking to us about commissions."

Wells' handmade pieces of stainless steel, plumped with mohair, shearling and other unique upholstery, often are completed just before they're supposed to be shipped, and the Web site has enabled him to quickly snap digital photos and update his portfolio just before the furniture heads out the door.

Carmen Wells, the 31-year-old partner and marketer, credits the University of Chicago Law School's unique program for entrepreneurs with helping the company gain crucial advice on contracts, designs, copyrights and intellectual property issues.

Said McKinley, "It's difficult to know where to turn for that kind of advice, especially when you are starting a business."

The program is called the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship (http://clinic.ij.org). It is the only one in the nation sponsored by the Institute for Justice, a Washington, D.C.-based Libertarian public interest law firm.

The clinic partners with MBA students at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business to advise entrepreneurs on their business goals. Its efforts garnered attention in Inc magazine's November edition.

McKinley, a former Columbia College student, started designing furniture as a side job while he designed and decorated commercial studio sets. He shopped prototypes of his designs to local architects and interior designers. He founded McKinley Design four years ago.

McKinley asked Carmen to lend her expertise in networking and marketing. Carmen had sharpened her skills as a liaison and then as director of the AmeriCorps national service program at the University of Michigan, running programs as diverse as AIDS prevention, economic development and community gardening.

Carmen's search for affordable business expertise paid off when a student at the Institute for Justice Clinic, which has a waiting list, found time to take McKinley Design as a new client. The clinic provides free services to low- to moderate-income entrepreneurs who otherwise would be unable to afford the expertise of law and MBA students at a top university.

The company is nearly ready to fly on its own now. It tallied $400,000 in sales this year from residential and commercial work, and employs four full-time and two part-time workers.

Anna Fong tells a similar story. The 24-year-old Humboldt Park native and Columbia College graduate has moved to New York to pursue her dream of selling her line of women's "urban gear" apparel.

She appreciated the clinic's effort to understand her business focus and goals. Fong also has set up a Web site of her fashions (www.afongcollection.com), including jeans, T-shirts, belts and hats.

The entrepreneurs' progress is music to the ears of Joe Holt, the clinic's director.

Holt, 45, a Harvard Law graduate, served 11 years as a Jesuit priest before working for high-powered Chicago law firms Katten Muchin Zavis and Rosenmann and Bartlit, Beck, Herman, Palenchar & Scott.

While in the priesthood, he saw world tragedies firsthand. He worked with terminal cancer patients in his native Bronx, studied Spanish in Nicaragua during the height of the civil war, ministered to lepers in Nigeria, and did human rights work in Belfast.

"You'd love to be able to solve all of the extreme need and poverty at once," he said. "None of us can. What you can do is help create wealth--to help someone get started in a business, be able to provide for themselves and their families, and create jobs."

For the students, Holt's goal is to provide them a sense of the good their services can do and motivate them to do pro bono work in their careers.

"The graduates will be successful by conventional standards," Holt said. "I hope through this program, they will see there are levels of success beyond the merely financial."

Other Chicago area legal resources for entrepreneurs:

Community Economic Development Law Project of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (CEDLP)

• www.cedlp.org

• $25 application fee for entrepreneurs; $50 to $250 fee for non-profit groups, depending on the type of legal assistance requested. Works with Chicago's legal community to provide pro bono services to low- to moderate-income entrepreneurs and to non-profit organizations involved in community development and affordable housing development.

DePaul University College of Law, Technology/Intellectual Property Clinic

• www.law.depaul.edu

• (Click on "Opportunities," "Institutes, Centers and Programs," "Center for Intellectual Property Law and Information Technology" and then "TIP Clinic")

• No fees. Designed for people who cannot afford private counsel for this type of work.

Lawyers for the Creative Arts

• www.law-arts.org

• Pro bono legal services for arts and cultural entrepreneurs who qualify according to income criteria.

Loyola Business Law Clinic

• www.luc.edu

• Modest fees for for-profit businesses. No fees for not-for-profit organizations. No income limits.

Northwestern University School of Law, Small Business Opportunity Center

• >www.sboc.org

• $50 for first consultation and written report; fees range from $250 to $350. No income limits.