BY
As the co-CEO’s of Punctilio, Inc., we were delighted to read Jonas Blank’s article in last week’s RECORD. We appreciate the depth and detail in which he described Punctilio, Inc., and we commend him for his grasp of the broader issues that define the context within which Punctilio is operating. We do, however, want to clarify just a few points.
First, we cannot emphasize sufficiently the role that OPIA played at the outset of Punctilio’s formation. Unsurprisingly, OPIA’s efforts to provide information to students interested in private public interest law firms — in the midst of funding and staffing limitations — were valiant and indeed, quite ahead of other law schools. Before Punctilio came onto the scene, OPIA sponsored annual panels on private public interest firms and had produced a specialty guide describing private public interest law firms. OPIA also had over 100 of the more prominent firms listed in a separate section of the employer directory of its public interest resource guide. This information formed the groundwork for Punctilio’s database, and Alexa Shabecoff was very helpful in providing us with contacts from her own wealth of personal resources. OPIA was supportive of the corporation’s mission from the very beginning and it demonstrated this support tangibly by co-sponsoring both of our panels.
We also wanted to clarify that during the founding of Punctilio there were a number of students in Prof. Jon Hanson’s Corporations class who played significant roles. Every year, Prof. Hanson suggests to his class that it develop a business plan and engage in the process of “incorporating.” In addition to Eric Zacks and Joshua Blank, both of whom remain actively involved with Punctilio, several other students participated in getting Punctilio up and running. Also, Prof. Hanson is the actual, not honorary, chairman.
Although we are incorporated in the state of Massachusetts (that’s right, NOT Delaware), and indeed we received enormous assistance from lawyers at Fried Frank and bankers from Goldman Sachs, the IPO was a “mock” affair designed to illustrate the mechanics of “going public,” as well as to provide an opportunity for those of us who worked on the corporation to present it officially to the members of the class. Although our classmates became actual shareholders, we are not (yet) a publicly-traded company.
Finally, Tim Cullen, who has contributed endless hours as our website designer and manager, is presently a law student at Boston University, not Boston College.
Thank you!
Clare Connors and Danny Grooms