Ramblings

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/ Bruce Cameron

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm – Sir Winston Churchill

There are fifteen steps that, if followed precisely and in the correct order, will guarantee your small town law practice will be a successful, profitable enterprise. Unfortunately, the last person who knew what these steps is also the only person on record to have found a way to successfully transmute lead into gold. So, rural entrepreneur, you will have to be satisfied with these few suggestions to ease your way between failures.

Get paid up front

I cannot claim credit for this – this is, after all, Foonberg Rule #1.⁠ Discussing fees and collecting a retainer is the first of many difficult conversations you will have with clients, but it is something that must be done and is necessary if your practice is to thrive. It is far easier to get paid up front than it is to try to collect when all is said and done. If you aren’t collecting fees, you are doing pro-bono work and that is simply an expensive way to fail slowly. Develop a reputation for providing quality service at a reasonable price and most rural clients are not going to quibble about the price; but they also aren’t going to volunteer to pay it either – you’ve got to ask.

Give it everything you’ve got

This is more than just a reminder about working hard, in a small town there is little distinction between the profession and the professional – what you do is part and parcel of who you – so accept that you are going to be a lawyer 24/7/365 regardless of what your office hours are. Until you are established as a community fixture, you and your business are going to be evaluated, weighted and measured. You are going to be always building your reputation, so give this endeavor everything you’ve got and use every skill you have. After you are established as a community fixture – you’ll still be a lawyer 24/7, you and your practice will still be evaluated, weighted and measured, and you still have to maintain your reputation, but at least now folks will have funny stories about the day you… to tease you with – this is a good sign, it means you’ve been accepted. Continue reading →

Not Dressing Respectably

/ Bruce Cameron / 2 Comments

George Bernard Shaw said that his “main reason for adopting literature as a profession was that, as the author is never seen by his clients, he need not dress respectably” – I’ve been test driving a Virtual Law Office in the hopes that, like Mr. Shaw, I could, on occasion, dress a bit less respectably (or at the very least wander about the office barefoot) and  TotalAttorneys  has been good enough to allow me to abuse their product, picking nits, and ask odd questions since mid-June. I’ve come away very impressed.

Continue reading →

Yesterday’s Myths, Today’s Needs

/ Bruce Cameron / 3 Comments

We must not be hampered by yesterday’s myths in concentrating on today’s needs — Harold Geneen

There are a number of reasons not to embark on a rural law career – the daily Starbucks run is going to take a good hour (and then there is the wait in the store), your typical small town is not, generally, one of those places of rarefied refinement and culture attractive to the movers and shakers of the business world, so it’s not ideal for a lucrative mergers and acquisitions practice. However, there are a few common misconceptions that should be put to rest.

1. There is not enough work out there

It may not be raining soup, but there is work out there. The rural bar is small (only 20% of practicing lawyers practice in towns with populations of 50,000 or less), aging, and getting smaller as rural lawyers retire. Yet the need for legal services remains constant, so the result is that access to legal services is reduced and small town folks end up having to either travel to find legal representation or do with out. The secret is: people in small towns prefer to spend money locally – create a favorable environment (affordable services, a reputation for competence) and the work will come.

2. I can’t afford to work at a lower rate Continue reading →

Its a Small Bar

/ Bruce Cameron / 2 Comments

Think this is hot, try it in a suit

As I was driving through God’s Country (at least that’s what the sign on the barn said -generally this appellation is applied to any section of a county where the roads aren’t laid out along a rectangular grid and one can’t see across a section by merely standing on a gopher mound, but a sign makes it official) that small towns and rural law are places where tradition often supersedes practicality. Here I was dressed in the traditional lawyer’s uniform on a day where the heat index was in the triple digits and heading to record levels, on my way to a Sheriff’s sale – an event still held, in this particular county, on the courthouse steps.

So there we gathered – 3 lawyers and 1 deputy, all dressed to the 9s – on the unshaded southern steps of the courthouse for what had to be the fastest Sheriff’s sale in county history; 3 sales, 15 minutes and the deputy even read the complete particulars for each sale – it may have been fast, but the formalities of tradition had been met. While I did not time it, I am sure that new records were also set for the 25 yard stair-dash that followed the conclusion of the sale as all participants headed to the courthouse doors.

Outdoor temperatures had kept the usual small talk in abeyance prior to sale, but now safely ensconced in the air-conditioned courthouse lobby, one could expend the calories necessary for extraneous talking without the risk of spontaneous combustion. These pleasantries are usually limited to an exchange of names, a comment or two on the weather, the state of the crops, or perhaps the success (or lack there of) of whatever major league sports team is currently playing. On this occasion, one of the lawyers and I had one of those “I know we’ve met before, but can’t place where” moments – after running down the usual suspects – bar meeting, bar section meeting, court – and drawing a complete blank, we turned to one of the tried and true subjects – tractors which in turn, as these things do, to hay (this being the time of year for first crop), then to cows and finally to vets which brought us back to the original question – where had we met before. Turns out, we use the same large animal vet and had met at the vet’s shooting range – if your vet decorates his office with a bear trap, a half-dozen rifles, and sundry pieces of reloading equipment, is it any surprise that he has a shooting range. Small world.