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Of Counsel
Densborn Blachly LLP
An eclectic academic career helped Jim Coles become the adviser of choice for businesses seeking help with technological and intellectual property, or IP, issues, including patent, trademark, copyright, trade secrets and IP transactions and litigation. It began after he earned an engineering degree and then decided to pursue an advanced degree in another field. He thought about getting an MBA, but during his junior year in engineering school he took a business law course that changed his trajectory. “I enjoyed the course and got a good grade,” Coles said. “Therefore, I decided that I wanted to go to law school.” He attended night classes while working for McDonnel-Douglas in St. Louis as a contract engineer, graduating in four and a half years. In addition to helping his clients navigate often complex cases, he also makes frequent presentations on a variety of IP and technology legal issues. He’s instructed students and lectured entrepreneurs at institutions including the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, Purdue University School of Engineering and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
Givebacks: founder, Access Technology Across Indiana; former trustee, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
First job: painting houses
Other projects: Coles was an adjunct professor at the IU Robert H. McKinney School of Law, where he taught a course he designed from scratch called Intellectual Property Transactions. After years of fruitless searching for a textbook for the course, he finally wrote one himself. “I wrote a book which could be used as a text for students or as a guide for practicing lawyers,” he said. “The book was and is still published by the American Bar Association.”
Advice: “Law is a very complicated subject. Clients can put considerable pressure on a lawyer to get a job done quickly or to get the result that they want, even though that result may not be consistent with the law. Take your time in making decisions and don’t be pressured by a client to make the decision quickly or contrary to your understanding of the law.”
Favorite de-stressors: exercising•
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