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In fall 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Eric Bowers was living in New York City and interviewing for a new job in health care information technology. He’d worked in the industry for two decades, but having just lost his mother Bowers was at a personal crossroads.

“That’s when I got to thinking, do I really want to go back into this or do I want to do the thing that I’ve been interested in for a long time?” Bowers said. “I decided to take the plunge and enroll in culinary school and restaurant management.”

At the Institute of Culinary Education, Bowers, a lifelong Anglophile and culinary enthusiast, envisioned opening a bakery specializing in British-style savory pies. But first he needed help understanding food safety regulations, commercial kitchen leases, and zoning and use restrictions.

Today, with legal help from Duke Law’s Start-Up Ventures Clinic, he’s well on his way.

As owner of Oak City Pie Company, Bowers will soon begin producing and marketing delicacies such as shepherd’s pie, ham pot pie, and bourbon sweet potato pie.

“I do a lot of baking at home and I’m also going into real estate law, so it was the perfect client for me,” said Ryan Welch JD ’26, a student-attorney in the clinic.

“Eric has been an ideal client, because he's extremely communicative and responsive and very passionate about the work he’s doing, and curious as to how we can help him make his business more secure and more profitable.”

The Start-Up Ventures Clinic assists seed-stage and early-stage enterprises with legal matters such as company formation, intellectual property protection, commercialization strategies, and operational issues. Clients are mostly based in North Carolina and come from a wide range of industries, from food, fashion, and entertainment to agriculture, health, and technology.

The clinic is led by Bryan McGann, who directs both the clinic and Duke Law’s Program in Law & Entrepreneurship, and is also a seasoned entrepreneur who invented the pet product Pill Pockets, later selling it to Mars, and maintains stakes in other business ventures.

“Professor McGann's life story is really cool, and it’s always beneficial to learn from professors who have hands-on experience,” Welch said.

One current client, Jeani Health, is based on Duke’s campus. Founded by Ewan Bradley, Stuart Bladon, and Michael Bennett, all Duke student-athletes on the university’s track and field team, Jeani is developing wearable technology that measures movement through accelerometers on a wrist-worn device. That data is then processed by an algorithm that quantifies joint-specific loads and extracts insights that athletes and coaches can use to inform training, improve performance, prevent injury, and ultimately increase athletes’ career longevity.

One of Jeani’s unique selling points is that the user doesn’t need to take it off; the wristband will incorporate kinetic energy harvesters that charge the device from the wearer’s wrist movements. The device’s tagline is “Powered by your movement.”

“We’re competing for wrist space,” said Jeani CEO Ewan Bradley. “The wearable market is huge, but we just focus on movement, which we feel is quite an underserved portion of human health and human performance.”

Rachel Reardon JD ‘26, a student-attorney in the clinic, has helped Jeani convert its business structure from an LLC in North Carolina to a Delaware C Corp, drafted agreements for external contractors and users in the beta test, advised on fundraising, and helped protect its intellectual property through trademark analysis and securing a letter from Duke's Office for Translation and Commercialization that releases its claim on the product when it goes to market.

Bradley, who is completing a master's degree through the Duke Global Health Institute, called the clinic “an awesome opportunity for free legal counsel and support for a company of our size and our age.”

“We had some specific legal needs, but there were also issues that we, as a company and myself, hadn’t necessarily identified,” Bradley said. “Working with Rachel and Bryan to get their insight and their experience has been invaluable in terms of allowing us to make the most of this opportunity.”

Better prepared for practice

A start-up lawyer is “kind of a jack-of-all-trades,” said Surya Korrapati JD/LLM ’25, who is now an attorney at Robinson Bradshaw. “You don't really do discrete issues. The client will say, ‘I have a problem with X, Y or Z.’ But underneath that there are some bigger, deeper issues that the client may not recognize but you can spot with your legal training. You end up helping them in ways that neither of you expected when you began the engagement. That's one of the most rewarding parts.”

Korrapati said the independence and autonomy that McGann gives students helped him start achieving results for clients within his first month as a new associate.

“Because of my clinic experience, I feel like I had more understanding of client needs and expectations coming in on day one,” Korrapati said. 

“Without the clinic, I don’t think I would have the confidence to go into a partner's office and say, ‘A client wants to be a public benefit corporation because of X, Y, Z, and here are the steps that I think we should do.’ Instead of bringing questions, you bring answers, and that’s something the clinic really instilled in me.”

Both Oak City Pie Company and Jeani Health are now poised for growth. Bowers has secured kitchen space to start making pies that he plans to sell through caterers and local farmers' markets before opening his own store. Besides traditional English fare, he’s experimenting with fillings inspired by other cultures. 

And Jeani is about to launch a consumer-friendly app that incorporates part of its algorithm into the Apple Watch, allowing it to generate revenue and gain brand recognition through subscriptions on the world’s bestselling wearable. 

Meanwhile, the founders plan to complete a pre-seed funding round and will use data and feedback from the initial prototype, which is currently being tested by 60 track and field teammates, to hone a device aimed at athletes that could be ready for the market later in the year.

Bradley said the clinic’s support, beyond just providing legal services, has been vital to moving Jeani to this point.

“Above everything else, both Bryan and Rachel seem super excited by our product and our vision as a company,” Bradley said.

“As an early founder, it's awesome to have that kind of support from legal counsel who really believe in and want the best for you. I'd say that's been the best part of working with the Start-Up Ventures Clinic.”