McGuireWoods lawyer Carmelo Chimera will deliver the good news any day now. He has selected one of the more than 700 people who entered an essay contest in hopes of winning one of the two comic book stores he owns.

The giveaway is based on the best essay about what makes a good comic book store, and it's turned Chimera, a 2013 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School who is a staff attorney at McGuireWoods, into something of a local celebrity around the Windy City. He founded Chimera's Comics during his first year of law school and later expanded into a second location. The comic book enthusiast has also published his own graphic novel.

We caught up with Chimera to discuss the giveaway, how he balanced law school with opening a small business, and the benefits of following one's passions while still practicing law. His answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Starting a comic book store while in your first year of law school—at the University of Chicago, no less—will strike many people as insane. How did you manage it all? In some ways, starting the store in law school helped me through law school. It's a very high-pressure environment that can be very competitive. It's very stressful. When you're in an echo chamber and it's all you do and all you live, it wears on you. The comic book store might have added to my work load, but creatively it gave me a place to express myself and to flourish in other ways. I think that helped me in school, too.

How did the comic book store come about? What's the origin story? I worked at a comic book store in high school. I worked with a friend there. When I went off to college, this friend and I started working on a comic book. I had written it and he was drawing it for me. While we were working on that comic book, the store we had met at had fallen on hard times. He called me up one morning at 1 a.m. and said, “Can I buy you a cup of coffee? I have an idea.” I thought, at 1 a.m., that's exciting. I met him and he said, “Why don't we open our own store?” Lawyers can be risk averse. I am not. I said, “Let's see if it's possible.” If you close the door on opportunities before you even investigate them, you're missing out on what life has to offer. It turned out it was very possible. We made it happen.

You have two stores, right? That's right. I have the one in La Grange, which is the one I opened during law school. I opened my Oak Lawn store right before the bar exam. That's the one I'm now giving away.

Tell me about your law practice. I'm a staff attorney at McGuireWoods, and that's part of what allows me the flexibility to run my stores. Associates have higher demands on their time than I do. It's not that my job isn't demanding, I just have a lower billable hour requirement. Right now I work in private equity—banking, finance and mergers and acquisitions are where I spend most of my time.

How do you juggle everything, because you aren't just running two comic book stores and practicing law, you're also creating your own comic book. That's right on point as to why I'm doing this giveaway. My first graphic novel came out last year, and it was a big success. My next graphic novel is coming out, literally as soon as the shipment arrives from the printer in China. It's hard to juggle and split my time and attention. Particularly with the comic book store and the publishing—I'm not doing it as well as I should be. I knew I needed to cut back. I had my own law practice up until two months ago—I was only a contractor for McGuireWoods. I closed my own law practice, so I could take this full-time position at McGuireWoods, which is another way to streamline how I spend my time.

Do your McGuireWoods colleagues know about your other career as a comic book impresario? I try to keep my Superman shirt and cape underneath my suit coat when I'm in the office, but I think my secret identity has gotten out. This story was on several news networks and several people here even heard me on the radio. I think they like it. Lawyers have these passion projects that sometimes they don't follow through on because we have a demanding profession. When they see that it's possible, it ignites their imagination.

How did you decide to give the store away? When I was thinking about ending that store, I thought I could close it or consolidate it with my other store. I could sell it. Those things all seemed depressing. But when I thought about giving it away, finally it was an idea I got excited about. I wanted to spread a little hope and optimism. This was a chance to do more than dispose of a business. This was a chance to show people that if they keep their eyes open, the world is a place of possibilities.

You got 720 essays. Have you chosen a winner? Yes, I have a winner now, but I have not notified them yet. Before I announce it publicly, I want to make sure they put pen to paper. I don't want to announce them until it's a done deal, because if it falls through, I'm going to go on to the next person.

What were you looking for in those essays? When I started, I was looking for passion, creativity and work ethic. And after I started reading and seeing people's responses, what I was looking for started to refine a bit. There wasn't a right answer to this question: “What makes a great comic book store?” I'd hoped to find the right answer. I started to see that people who understood inclusivity and the impact that comics and art can have on the community—those people really spoke to me.

What's your advice for other attorneys who have passion projects they aren't pursuing? At the end of the day, you need to make choices you can live with. If you can live with going your whole life without taking those risks or seeing what's possible, than that's fine. If you don't think you will be able to live with that, then you owe it to yourself to follow those passions.