Rural Practice

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.

Those Indispensable Devices

/ Bruce Cameron / 4 Comments

Don't Laugh, Lawyers Still Use These

At a resent CLE, a newly fledged solo (she being in the process of outfitting her office) seeing that I was taking notes on a Mac, asked me about the software and hardware I used in my practice and what I thought were “must-haves”. So, here is my short list of “indispensables”

  • My Snapscan 1500. Every original document that comes into the office relating to a client matter gets scanned and the original is sent to the client. This way, the client can track the progress of their matter and I don’t have to invest in file cabinets.
  • Crashplan. You’ve got to have backup software and Crashplan allows me to back up to locally attached media as well as to a private cloud. I get the advantage of having local media for quick restores and the redundancy of off-site storage. The fact that I can use my own private cloud means that I keep my data under my control
  • Daylite & Billings. Daylite is a business productivity manager – that happens to work well as law practice management software and Billings tracks time & expenses and generates invoices. The programs share data with each other and the real strength of these programs lies not in the vast array of things you can do with them, but in the fact that you can be productive with them right out of the box.
  • My Mac’s (a desktop & a laptop). Sure, you have to buy into Apple’s walled garden approach to hardware and software, but that’s not an entirely bad thing – I’m looking for stability and consistency in my business hardware and I really don’t care if I can tweak a few more cycles out of the CPU or if I can install the latest beta version of a piece of software. I do care that I spend little to no time on IT issues – initial setup, from unpacking the boxes to having the system up and running with all software installed, took less than 90 minutes and I’ve not spent more than 30 minutes in any one month since on computer issues. These little buggers work.
  • A typewriter. Now this one is a little practice area specific, but if you have any dealings with residential real estate in MN, then sooner or later you are going to run into a need to complete a certificate of real estate value (CRV). This is a 3 part form that has no electronic equivalent – it has to be physically filed and must be either hand- or type-written. Since my handwriting is so abysmal, were I to complete a CRV by hand it would look more like a prescription than a legal document – so a typewriter is de rigueur.

Rural Marketing – Its The Message

/ Bruce Cameron

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say that there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe. Frank Zappa

This post is off-schedule in part to that particular brand of “what were you thinking when…” stupidity that keeps lawyers employed and in part to the sheer genius of the purveyors of commercial advertising space that leaves in its wake a feeling of  absolute wonderment that any organization could survive the disconnect between the people selling the service and the people serving existing accounts.

Now, I am not a marketing wunderkind – frankly my entire theory of marketing is that one should address potential clients as if they have a functioning brain and tell them “what’s in it for them” in as few words as possible. Hopefully this can be accomplished before their eyes glaze over or they run screaming from the room – my marketing theory has yet to incorporate bondage, but I do hear that it is popular in some circles. However, the idea that one’s customers might possibly be thinking creatures seems to be out of favor this week in some sales circles. Continue reading →