Rural Practice

A Letter to a 1L

/ Bruce Cameron

Dear Chris,

Thank you for your e-mail. It is quite heartening to know that there are other souls out there with an interest in practicing in rural communities. There is no one way or single resource that will best prepare you for a career as a rural lawyer – based on my conversations with rural lawyers from across the country, I am coming to the conclusion that each rural lawyer’s career is unique to that lawyer and to the community they serve. What I can offer are some general observations intertwined with a smattering of  “were I to do it over agains” .

Since you had a few questions about business management, I assume that you are considering embarking on a career as a rural solo (though don’t discount the value being well versed in business management will have to a existing small rural practice). There are a number of fine books out there that cover going solo from the lawyer’s perspective (Jay Foonberg’s How to Start and Build a Law Practice and Carolyn Elefant’s Solo by Choice spring to mind) but if you want to learn about the ins and outs of running a business get in touch with SCORE – they offer mentoring, webinars, newletters, guides and live classes all designed to help you start and grow a business; all provided at little to no cost by SCORE volunteers (working or retired business owners, executives and corporate leaders). I wish I had connected with SCORE about 12 months before I opened my practice rather than 12 months after. Continue reading →

Haircuts And Practice

/ Bruce Cameron

I had, the other day, the need for a haircut – an event that is becoming less and less an occasion with each passing year – an stopped by the local barbershop for a trim. Now, for the male population of a small town, the local barbershop is, for all intents and purposes, the equivalent of a day spa; a place to be pampered (or at least the grizzled male version of pampering) and to discuss the important issues of the day – the fate and future of the local sports team, the weather, crops, the market (farm, not stock), and the general competence (or lack there of) of various and sundry notables.

Now, while waiting for the number 2 chair – general barbershop etiquette, one would never presume to occupy the number 1 chair for just a “sides & back” trim – I had the chance to observe that solemn male ritual of the barbershop shave. Now this is no scrape the foam off with a multi-bladed techno-marvel kind of shave, this is soap and lather, hot towels, cold steel and steady ands kind of shave; there is the scent of danger here, an element of suspense when, at that first critical moment when 4 inches of keen edged surgical steel starts its initial glide down the cheek, conversation quiets in tribute to and recognition of that briefest moment of panic that lights the customer’s eye before fading into contentment as the steel safely starts its downward journey.

That moment of panic, however fleeting, found a echo in my memories – there reflected in those few milliseconds, was the essence of my state of mind during the initial days of my practice. From what had seemed like a good idea moments before the key was put into the lock and the rubicon was crossed now had morphed into  doubt cascading over dread, roiling over uncertainty – exhilaration, calamity, wonderment and elation all warring for recognition, for resolution – leaving an intense rawness behind that has faded into the contentment of a journey safe begun.

To Know What One Ought To Do

/ Bruce Cameron / 9 Comments

Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do. Saint Thomas Aquinas Two Precepts of Charity

It is National Pro Bono Week and if you are here for that up-beat, positive, celebratory post you’ve come to the wrong place – there is a crying need for pro bono services in rural areas which, for the most part, is going largely unanswered and that is just plain depressing.

The need is very real – based on 2000 Census data, 459 of the 500 poorest counties in the nation are rural, 481 of the 500 counties with the lowest per-capita income are rural, and rural counties with poverty rates above the national average outnumber urban counties by 5 to 1. The rural poor are more likely to be married and more likely to be working than their urban counterparts, but they are also more likely to be generationally poor and chronically under-employed as well.

The problem is very real – an ABA survey shows that only 20 percent of lawyers live in towns/areas with populations of less 50,000 or less, and that distance and travel demands, lack of technology and associated infrastructure, and lack of supporting resources constrain the availability of pro bono services. The prevailing perception seems to be that because no one lives in rural counties and even if they did their legal problems are so trivial that it is not worth expending resources in these areas. It is a case of too few, too small, too hard, why bother. Continue reading →

The 3000 Foot View

/ Bruce Cameron

It was the contrast between a morning of field work – a few hours listening to the drone of the tractor and watching the newly mown grass be transformed into bales of hay – and an afternoon of flying – an hour or so spent just drilling a hole in the sky, shamelessly taking advantage of the offer of the use of a new plane for just the cost of gas, enjoying the view from 3000 feet – that brought to mind the oddities of perspective.

For the farmer, harvest can be a time of shrinking perspectives. Once conditions are right, one’s vision narrows to singular focus on the 10 feet of field immediately in front of you through to the implement 6 feet behind you. All else fades away as the process of transforming plant to product encompasses you and your headspace narrows down to this field, these furrows, and this task.

For the pilot, harvest can be a time of expanding perspectives. The CAVU skies and cooler temperatures promise smooth flights and simple, visual navigation. Once the ground is left behind, one’s vision widens. The chart on one’s lap becomes writ large on the earth below – the cardinal directions drawn out by the section lines made visible by the farm fields and fence lines below. Your perspective widens to encompass the entire horizon as you perform an intricate dance with the physics of flight.

The morning had been spent driving a tractor by sight, by ear, and by feel – making adjustments by the sound of the grass passing into the baler, by the bump and lurch of the tractor, and by the relationship between windrow and tire – a system almost as accurate as the tractor’s rudimentary instruments. Unlike my morning’s workhorse, my stead for the afternoon was a marvel of technology – instruments capable of mapping my location and orientation with pinpoint accuracy, a synthetic vision system displaying a 3D representation of the terrain flown over, and an autopilot powerful enough to fly from take-off to landing. Yet, that day, I flew by sight, by ear, and by feel – by the sound of the air across the wings, the bump and lurch of the plane and by the relationship between the plane and the horizon.

Both tasks could have been performed with a different perspective – I could have put the hay up by watching the wider world – maintaining a steady speed on the speedometer and steering straight lines from field edge to field edge and I could have flown with my head nestled deep in the plane’s cockpit with my attention fixedly attuned to the wealth of digital information – but to do so would be to defeat some of the task’s expectations, to lose a little of the art of the task.

God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time. Terry Pratchett

For the client, a case can be a time of  non-existant perspective. They  find themselves in that pitch dark room, forced into an obscure game, and focused so narrowly they cannot a future or a past. This lack of perspective neither good nor bad, it just is.

For lawyers, a case can be a time of infinite perspective. The boundless possibilities of a new matter quickly have a lawyer’s perspective traversing the vast scale space –  from the minutiae of statutory interpretation to the wide expanses of legal strategy – that is part and parcel of the lawyer’s realm.

In isolation, neither perspective is very efficient – the client’s narrow focus leads down the road to positional, non-strategic thinking and often leads to frustration on the part of the lawyer; while the lawyer’s perspective tends to be overwhelming to the client. The key is to set the proper expectations – explicit expectations help to widen the client’s expectations and to focus the lawyers. The cool thing is that by establishing a proper perspective, things become more efficient and (here’s the real bonus) it becomes easier for the client to see the lawyer’s value.

Small Town Courting

/ Bruce Cameron

A fundamental difference between a small town and a small city is that small towns, regardless of their population, still have courthouses whereas small cities, in their hurry to morph into bedroom communities for some urbane metropolis, have justice centers.

Justice centers are grand buildings, integrating glass, steel and stone into a monument  to bureaucratic judicial efficiency providing one stop shopping for all things legal from the sheriff to the recorder and from the courtroom to the jail cell. These are places designed  for those who assume that the efficiencies of consolidation & modernization make up for chronic underfunding. Here there is a cold sterility to the environment that seems to make courtesy appear artificial and channels the mass of humanity that enters its walls into tired, well-worn roles.

Courthouses, on the other hand, are quiet buildings sitting in silent dignity on the edge of the town square; more cathedral than monument. Newer buildings housing the sheriff, the recorder and the jail sit, like handmaidens, behind and to the side. Courthouses were built out of pride and are maintained out of tradition. There is a warmth within those weathered walls and worn and paneled walls that encourages courtesy – more as an act of devotion than a gentile gesture – and welcomes those who enter.

Recently I’ve had similar matters in both a small city justice center and a small town courthouse. In the former, the matter was concluded in a matter 10 tense minutes – a business transaction handled in the crisp efficiency only a streamlined & work-flowed process can provide. In the later, the matter took about twice as long, but along the way, I got caught up on what’s new in town, the weather, and the health of a friend’s dog. Both matters were billed as fixed fees, only one made me glad to have put on my lawyer suit that day.