Ramblings

$500 Worth of Law

/ Bruce Cameron / 5 Comments

In the 19th century, Benjamin Brewster summed up the essence of the billable hour debate as:

A lawyer starts life giving $500 worth of law for $5 and ends giving $5 worth for $500.

The key questions surrounding this issue boil down to: “what is all this advice worth” and “what are clients willing to pay”. As I see it, these are two sides of the same coin and regardless of how you want to get paid, there is a simple methodology for arriving at a pricing structure that will satisfy both the attorney and the client – accurately determine your daily rate and then give your clients full value.

The magic formula is: Continue reading →

The Uncertain Glory of an April Day*

/ Bruce Cameron

Spring has come to this rural practice and with it brings the ritual and renewal that is spring cleaning. Spring cleaning is that biannual event, not quite unlike a wiccan sabbat, where one marks the turning of the seasons with some sort of great occasion. The tedious eviction of the accumulated detritus of the past six months may to give way to some great bacchanalia but it does provide for a certain amount of contemplation and reflection.

Some years back, on one of these April days where the weather was too good to work inside, but not quite good enough to work out in the yard or in the fields, I found myself lying half way into the manger of my horse trailer attempting to rivet a metal patch in place. Continue reading →

There is a Season

/ Bruce Cameron

The old saw says there are two season in Minnesota; winter and road construction. For the rural community, life revolves around the seasons of planting, growing, harvest, and equipment repair and for the rural lawyer, these rhythms influence the rhythms of our practice.

The start of planting season is heralded by warming temperatures, the deep-throaty grumbled of diesel engines, the odor of freshly manured fields and the client calls asking for appointments :”after second cutting” or “when the corn’s in” or “once the oats are in”. I should note that these times are not as nebulous as they sound at first; they are just part of the rhythms of the harvest season and coincide with peaks in clients’ income streams. Continue reading →

50 Years Ago

/ Bruce Cameron

A night flight in a light aircraft ended abruptly a few minutes after take-off and 5 miles from the airport according to the accident report.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the deaths of Charles Hardin, J.P. Richardson and Richard Valenzuela (aka Buddy Holly, “The Big Bopper”, and Ritchie Valens) and marks the “day the music died“.

Reading the accident report, it appears that, in the end, the pilots over-eagerness to make the flight overruled common sense. Seems like there might be a lesson in there somewhere for lawyers and the decision to take/not take a client.