Caldwell Intellectual Property Law's pro bono work enables incarcerated entrepreneurs to pursue their startup dreams while serving time.

Keegan Caldwell gets letters every week from inmates asking for help from his law firm. Not with appeals, but with their inventions. The firm is Caldwell Intellectual Property Law, and its pro bono work is filing patents for the incarcerated--an investment of years and hundreds of hours of legal work that could cost paying clients more than $100,000.

Carrying the stigma of criminal backgrounds, the formerly incarcerated face 30 percent higher unemployment, and more than half return to prison within five years. Entrepreneurship can sidestep systemic hurdles and reduce rates of recidivism. "The folks we're working with in the prison system are outstanding people who are doing everything they can to improve the quality of their lives," says Caldwell, 43. "Everyone deserves that."

His viewpoint stems from personal experience. Caldwell enlisted in the Marines before finishing high school, and after he left the Corps in 2001, a decade-long struggle with addiction escalated and spiraled into 13 arrests and six felony convictions. Millions of Americans with similar rap sheets have landed in prison, but his case got diverted to drug treatment court; he went to a treatment facility instead of a prison cell. "My life could have turned out very differently," he says. "I feel a personal, social responsibility to tell a little bit of my story, because there is hope for people."