Entrepreneurs and Business People

After getting his law degree Gary Culliss started an Internet company, Direct Hit Technologies.

Tiffany Mickel has just started her law degree, but she has already founded a company, Heiritage, that features famous African-American women, such as Angela Davis, Harriet Tubman, and Shirley Chisholm, on playing cards. Ms. Mickel is a joint J.D.-M.B.A. student at the University of Virginia.

University of Denver law grad John H. Works was CEO of Rompetrol, an international oil and gas conglomerate.

Karen E. Laine, a graduate of the McKinney School of Law (IUPUI) founded Two Chicks and a Hammer with her daughter Mina Starsiak Hawk, and is one of the stars of HGTV’s show Good Bones. 

Cheryl Numark tired of law practice, opened an art gallery in the D.C. area and is now an art advisor. Steve Davis was a human rights lawyer before taking over direction of Corbis, an archive of photographs owned by Microsoft. Donald Watkins, a University of Alabama law graduate, attempted to revitalize the fortunes of the Minnesota Twins by buying the team. He also attempted to purchase several other professional sports teams. Truman Gibson practiced law in Chicago before becoming a member of Harry Truman’s “black Cabinet”; he also became a successful boxing promoter.

Nina and Tim Zagat practiced law for decades before deciding to make their hobby of dining out into a full time career. They now publish the enormously popular Zagat Restaurant Survey. Attorney Daniel Dolan decided matchmaking was more fun than corporate deal-making, and is the President and CEO of It’s Just Lunch, a dating service for professionals. Bernard Jarrier-Cabernet was a lawyer for five years before becoming a painter, and then a restauranteur and then a publisher. Samantha Daniels is a professional matchmaker. She co-produced the comedy Miss Match, which starred Alicia Silverstone.

Texas-born Marjorie Scardino earned a law degree from the University of San Francisco and became the first woman to head a company listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Colonel Sanders studied law before launching the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants.

Frederick Furth practices law and makes wine in Sonoma County, California. Jess Stonestreet Jackson (founder of the Kendall-Jackson Winery) is also a lawyer. Anthony Avis put his legal training to use in management at Hammonds United Breweries. His book The Brewing Industry 1950-1990 recounts his adventures.

California lawyer Steve Pitcher turned to writing about wine after two decades of writing about law. Lawyer Robert Parker publishes the Wine Advocate. Other lawyers who combine wine with advocacy include Paul Beveridge (yes, that’s really his name), Jim Paras, and Robert M. Cohen. LSU Law graduate William McGehee and his partner Charles Caldwell started Tin Roof Brewing Company in Baton Rouge. Rick Rosenfield and Larry Flax quit law for pizza and founded California Pizza Kitchen in 1985; it’s now a leading restaurant chain.

Former New York lawyer Julie Menin owned a restaurant that was destroyed in the September 11th terrorist attacks. Randy Paragary is a McGeorge Law School graduate who runs numerous Sacramento eateries.

Georgetown Law School graduate Marshawn Evans appeared on Donald Trump’s The Apprentice, founded 3M Edge Sports and Entertainment, and wrote Skirts in the Boardroom: A Woman’s Survival Guide to Success in Business & Life (Wiley 2008).

Adam Epstein has launched a business that lets people become sports announcers.

Philadelphia’s Alycia Kinchloe has launched the Blazer Beauty Bar . Meanwhile, she continues to run her law firm, Kinchloe Law (@KinchloeLaw) and host her podcast, The Growth Goal.

Jeff Furman, co-founder of the successful Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company, earned a J.D. from NYU in 1968, and practiced law for a while and then doing some other things before eventually going into business with Ben Cohen.

Justin Wolverton, a corporate lawyer in Los Angeles, founded Halo Top Ice Cream in 2012.

Before he went to law school, Michael Sipos worked as a bartender in the French Quarter. He explains how that profession helped him learn some skills he uses as an attorney.