$1M grant to start business law clinic
The state attorney general's office has given a $1 million grant to the W. H. Bowen School of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the school announced Friday.
The grant will be used to start a Business Innovation Clinic, which will offer business law advice and services to small businesses, entrepreneurs and nonprofit organizations, according to the news release.
Services offered by the clinic include negotiating contracts and educational programs.
Students at the law school, along with a professional business law attorney, will work with entrepreneurs to start their businesses, the news release said.
"This innovative clinic is a great demonstration of how a university can serve the needs of the private sector and support economic development," said UALR Chancellor Andrew Rogerson in a prepared statement.
-- Jessica Seaman
Nonprofit will aid Delta cooperatives
The U.S. Small Business Administration has granted Communities Unlimited Inc. a $150,000 grant to work with cooperatives and to identify business opportunities for cooperatives in the Delta region, the Fayetteville-based nonprofit said Friday.
Communities Unlimited, a community development organization, will be given the grant at an event on Thursday, the news release said.
Communities Unlimited's Entrepreneurship Consulting arm will provide training, technical assistance and access to capital to help business cooperatives be financially stable. The organization will also help business cooperatives develop financial and management systems for their operation, the news release said.
"In these communities, employee-owned cooperative structures can become a way to save local businesses and jobs restoring hope to a community," said Chief Executive Officer Ines Polonius in a statement.
-- Jessica Seaman
Index skids 5.56 as 15 stocks drop
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, dropped 5.56 to 334.67 Friday.
Fifteen stocks lost ground Friday and three rose.
Bank of the Ozarks rose 1.2 percent in above-average volume.
For the week, 11 stocks declined, six advanced and one was unchanged.
ArcBest rose 8.1 percent for the week.
Windstream fell 12.3 percent for the week.
Total volume for the index Friday was 42.6 million shares. The average daily volume for the week was 27.6 million shares.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.
Business on 10/08/2016