Month: April 2010

Herd Bound

/ Bruce Cameron

Perhaps it was the 3 articles in the ABA Journal’s weekly e-newsletter expressing astonishment at the success of lawyers going solo, or perhaps it was the odd looks I got at  yesterday’s County Bar’s New Lawyers Meeting when I introduced myself a SOS (solo out of school), but I been contemplating about herd bound horses and the practice of law.

I’m in the long process of gentling a young mare – a process made a bit more difficult by the fact that she’s herd bound. Now, for those of you who don’t know, a herd bound horse has a strong “emotional” attachment to its herd. Now, if this attachment is great for long term survival in the wild – for the wild horse, the herd provides direction and protection (straying to far from the herd tends to get one eaten). However, for the domestic horse whose biggest challenge is waiting for the 6:00 PM bucket of oats this attachment can be both a source of amusement and a source of frustration for its human servants – there’s nothing quite like trying to have a quiet ride when your horse is screaming, prancing, and whinnying simply because you’ve walked out of sight of the other horses. Continue reading →

Lasagna and Lawyering

/ Bruce Cameron / 2 Comments
Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community.

Anthony J. D’Angelo
For a community to be whole and healthy, it must be based on people’s love and concern for each other.

Millard Fuller

The inevitability of living in a small rural town is that eventually events conspire to prove yet again that farming is dangerous and that horsepower and steel can conspire to illustrate the fragility human body. Such events seldom happen in the clear light of day, rather they wait until those hours when fatigue fogs the brain and diminishes decision making. Yet, these moments are also the moments when one can glimpse the defining element of a rural community – the outpouring of care and support that follows in tragedy’s wake.

Continue reading →

Within Lies Invincible Summer

/ Bruce Cameron / 4 Comments
When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer – Albert Camus
Recently, I was asked if my being a rural solo practitioner was because I saw the practice of law as a vocation. After all, wouldn’t there have to be something more behind the decision to invent many tens of thousands of dollars into a legal education and then to invest even more starting a solo practice that, by its very focus cannot be expected to generate even half the income of the career I left behind. I found it strange to be faced with a question I had once asked a lawyer whose career was spent in public law and was amazed by how difficult a question it is to answer. Continue reading →