Rural Practice

SOS – Solo Out of School

/ Bruce Cameron / 1 Comment

Make voyages! – Attempt them! – there’s nothing else… (Tennessee Williams)

So, you are thinking of going solo right of school – great! Here’s some things to keep in mind:

  • If you can pass the bar exam, you are (or at least yourState Bar thinks you are) competent to practice law. Period, end of discussion. So never doubt that you are sufficiently prepared to go out there and commit random acts of lawyerism. That nagging doubt, that fear that sneaks up in the quite hours of the night does not feed on your lack of competence, it feeds on your lack of experience. The good news is that there’s a cure for that – time. Continue reading →

Minutiae Matters

/ Bruce Cameron

Millions of years of evolution have equipped horses with endurance, grace, a certain nobility of movement, and a brain whose surplus computing power is slightly less than that of a four function calculator. Horses are absolutely sure of two things: (1) they taste good, and (2) everything that is not another horse wants to eat them. For the horse owner, these two certainties lead to the conclusion that whatever processing power the horse brain contains, 90% is dedicated to running away from things, 9% is dedicated to eating and the various autonomic systems needed to keep a the horse alive, and (if one is feeling generous) 1% is available for optional tasks – like paying attention to said owner.

Don’t get me wrong, I care for and have great respect for my horses and I am continuously amazed by the bargain they have struck with mankind. Here’s a prey animal that is willing to allow a much smaller predator to encompass it with straps and harnesses, to climb on its back, and to carry said predator for great distances and long periods of time in return for clean hay and the daily bucket of oats. Continue reading →

Stepping Off The Pier

/ Bruce Cameron / 2 Comments

The entrepreneur is essentially a visualizer and an actualizer. He can visualize something, and when visualizes it he sees exactly how to make it happen. — Robert L Schwartz

It seems that fate, fortune and the real estate market have pushed me off the pier and into the full time practice of law, much to the surprise of my original plans. I had grown comfortable with the idea that I would grow my small rural practice slowly on evenings and weekends while relying on that solid day job to cover life’s necessities. The only hitch… office space and the snail’s pace of small town government to issue things like conditional use permits and zoning variances (hey around here, plowing, planting and milking take precedence over council meetings).

When all seemed at a stand still, fate stepped in and I was offered affordable (so affordable I’ll be able to reduce my daily rate by $400) office space in a recently developed business incubator site lying at the junction of suburbia and the untamed rural countryside. Where once a dairy farm stood now stands a several blocks of office suites and a cash-strapped developer. The bad news is that to make this work, I’ve got to be a full time lawyer.

June 29th is the target date. Until then, blog entries may be a bit irregular – right now I’m alternating between Snoopy joy dances and blind panic. Hopefully the latter will eventually subside. Wish me luck.

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 →