Trudy Alston of Harvest Time Café & Catering in Chicago Heights, got special assistance from The John Marshall Law School’s Business Transaction Externship Program (BTEP) and its director Michael Schlesinger (left).
A block grant from the Cook County Bureau of Economic Development is enabling students at The John Marshall Law School to provide free legal assistance to prospective business owners in the county’s Southland region.
The students work through the law school’s Business Transaction Externship Program (BTEP) providing pro bono business and transactional legal services under the supervision of practicing attorneys. Upon receiving the grant, BTEP Director Michael Schlesinger made the Chicago Southland the focus of BTEP’s initiatives.
Spurring economic development and economic revitalization in underserved communities, assisting motivated, talented individuals to become economically independent business owners, and inspiring law students to engage in public service throughout their careers are the essentials of BTEP’s mission, Schlesinger explained.
The 2012 Community Development Block Grant enabled BTEP students and attorneys to attend numerous outreach meetings in Cook County’s south region speaking with more than 100 potential business and not-for-profit clients. Of those, BTEP provided pro bono representation to nine businesses on complex legal and transactional business matters.
One of those included Trudy Alston of Chicago Heights, who wanted to start a catering company and café. She got advice from BTEP on the type of business she would start and how to prepare a contract for catering clients. In 2012, Alston opened Harvest Time Café & Catering at 1039 Dixie Highway in Chicago Heights.
“The work of the law student-counselors was very professional and thorough,” she said. “They understood my business and drafted documents that fit the business just right.”
“BTEP clients know that the legal advice, counsel and work product delivered by the third year law student-counselors, is of the same high quality that emanates from the law firms where the faculty supervisors practice law,” Schlesinger added.
BTEP augments the economic development initiatives of chambers of commerce, community organizations, community development corporations, local governments, governmental agencies, and small business development centers by providing pro bono business and transactional legal services where they are most needed.
To learn more about John Marshall’s BTEP initiative, please visit www.jmls.edu/btep/