Zach Brown
Randy Nagy (left), founder of Fast Forward Forensics, consults with UW law student Bryon Eagon, who assisted Nagy with the company’s operating and reselling agreements.
Randy Nagy is always a little hesitant to sit down with a lawyer. He knows it will cost a fortune. Unfortunately for Nagy, who founded Fast Forward Forensics in April, lawyers are a necessity when you run your own business.
“When I do sit down with a lawyer, it’s a 15-minute discussion, and I don’t want it to be any longer” jokes Nagy, whose company sells products to collect and store biological samples.
But thanks to the UW-Madison’s Law & Entrepreneurship Clinic, Nagy and others have a free way to iron out the legal ramifications involved in running a business. “When I sit down with the clinic, it may take a half hour or 45 minutes, but you feel a lot better after that that a good decision has been made,” Nagy says.
Founded in 2009, the clinic also gives two- and three-year law students an opportunity to put what they’ve learned into practice. Law student Bryon Eagon loves the opportunity.
“It’s exciting because it’s real work, it’s not just a theoretical application and academic exercise,” says Eagon, a former Madison council member. “These are real clients with real-life legal issues that through our work we’re able to...hopefully help them grow and succeed as entrepreneurs.”
The clinic provides free legal services for budding entrepreneurs, nonprofits and small businesses. Its mission is to provide experience and a challenging academic environment for students and “high-quality” services to clients; it also aims to bolster the local and state economies through its work. Hundreds of clients — 310 in 2015 alone — have sought services from the clinic ranging in scope from drafting international distribution agreements and contracts to finalizing a patent or navigating intellectual property law.
“When we started, we had no clients and weren’t quite sure where we would find them,” says co-director Anne Smith, a UW law professor, who founded the clinic with attorney Eric Englund. “And now, we have so many that...we always have a backlog.”
The clinic is now more selective. Prospective clients start by filling out an application, and, if approved, attending an intake where they explain their business to Smith, students and supervising attorneys who serve as part-time mentors and staff. About 60% of clients are accepted and selected by student attorneys for consultation, Smith says. The clinic refers the rest to other resources that may help them.
If students are unfamiliar with the nuances of an issue, they can consult a supervising attorney or the clinic’s advisory committee, made up of representatives from 17 Wisconsin law firms.
Nagy was “pleasantly surprised” by how much the students knew. The clinic helped him draft operating and reselling agreements. He’s now working on a distribution agreement so he can sell his products overseas.
“It really puts into practice how we’re able to take some of the legal issues off his plate so he can focus on the science and business aspects of his company, so that he doesn’t have to juggle so many things,” says Eagon, who worked with Nagy.
Not surprisingly, Smith says that clients consistently cite the lack of legal fees as their favorite thing about the clinic. The intention is for it to always remain free. Students’ work throughout the year amounts to about 8,400 “billable hours,” which would account for about $2 million in fees if the clinic did charge clients.
Following up with clients after their services conclude gives a sense of how effective the clinic has been in fostering economic growth. A recent study from UW-Extension economics researchers found that 62% of new startups in Wisconsin “survive through three years of operation,” and that more than a quarter of gross job creation in the state is generated by startups. A clinic survey last year found that 75% of the clinic’s clients remained in business, 22% had annual revenues of $100,000 or more, and 10% employed five or more people.
Eagon says he likes being able to foster and sustain Wisconsin’s entrepreneurial spirit. “The resources institutionally and professionally are here in Madison to cultivate success,” Eagon says. “It’s our charge as a community going forward to think how we can best support those in our community and keep this positive trajectory going.”
