Complicated Partnership - Advice needed

Hello all, I'm new to this forum but I've been long time reader. My situation is complicated so here I've included some background information - sorry for the long first post.

I'm an IT guy working for a small law firm, I do some moonlighting on the side and have done ok doing so. Recently I've decided to go all out and really get my side business going. So, I decided to ask a friend, John(alias) who happens to be my bosses bother in law (he owns his own Dental IT company) for some business advice. As we spoke about my situation and how I wanted to grow my business, he was surprised, because he felt the same way and wanted the same. So he offered me to be a partner in his company, Dental Solutions Inc. (alias), I would become a partner and create an IT legal side to Dental Solutions Inc. (DSI). The first hurdle was to get the approval of my current boss, because I didn't want bad blood in the family, plus I wanted to make the law firm I'm currently at my first client.
When the news reached my current boss about the idea, he didn't take it too well, but quickly got over it and understood my circumstance. He agreed to becoming a client of DSI and letting me keep my current office for free as long as I would be the person in charge of their IT infrastructure. With that said it was insinuated by both my boss and I that my pay would be the same, just that my status from employee would be changed to consultant and we would do the change at the end of the year.
At the same time this is going on, John coincidently gets a referral to service a legal company. We figured that this was a good opportunity to get to know each other professionally before making the partnership official at the end of the year, and therefore went forward with this project together. We had decided that the profit of any new projects that we both worked on would be split 50/50, and so it has.
So with all that said we are still confused on how this partnership will work financially because I am not it a position financially to contribute capital to DSI.
So my questions are:

• What are ways for me to gain equity in the DSI without a financial investment?
• It was agreed that any projects we worked we would split 50/50. He needs help with his existing Dental clients, but won't ask me for help because he feels he would have to give me 50%. How can I help him with his existing clients fairly? Is there any ideas on how to meet halfway with the profit if I were to help him with an existing client, and vice versa?
• Does this partnership sound like a good idea?