Flora, Fauna and Balance

June 4, 2012 / Bruce Cameron

Balance There is one thing I have to say about moving a law office – don’t pack your checklist with all the rest of your papers. Took me 3 days to find it again and trying to tie up all the sundry loose ends from memory is a harrowing endeavor. You are constantly plagued with the nagging doubt that you’ve forgotten something. The only positive thing about this whole exercise (outside of the lower rent) was having scheduled some vacation time at the end of May (the great thing about being solo is that my boss is pretty easy-going when it comes to providing a little down time when needed).

For those not familiar with the idiosyncrasies of a rural solo practice, you have to realize that, unless you actually leave the vicinity of your practice (generally 500 miles is the minimum safe distance) vacation does not translate into time away from the office – rather, it translates into less time in the office (or dealing with client matters) and a more relaxed dress code. How much less time is highly variable and is highly dependent on the number of fires that crop up – rural clients understand that about the need to grab a little time away from the office from time to time (especially when the days are sunny, the fish are biting, or there’s hay to put up) and know that if you are on vacation, phone calls and e-mails may not always be returned the same day, but closings have to be done, bills have to be paid, invoices have to be sent, and court dates have to be made even if they do encroach on your time off. My latest vacation was about par for the course – 4 half days in the office and 2 half days working from home out of 10 working days away.

The upshot was that I had plenty of time to clear various assorted bits flotsam and jetsam out of the barn, garage, house, and my mind with time left over to put up first crop hay. Nothing like physical labor and the relative quiet of the rural country side to clear out the noise of the e-mail, cell phone, social media connected world. By the end, I was ready to head back to the practice ready to dive into this summer’s version of adventures in solo practice – that is until my 5:00 AM greeting by a highly affectionate and horrendously odoriferous dog snapped my synapses out of my vacation induced bonhomie. There is nothing quite like a freshly skunked dog to focus one’s attention – no slow immersion into the work-a-day world, this is the jump-in-the-deep-end-oh-man-that-water’s-cold introduction to reality. This morning’s activities became focused on the single task of reducing the pungent cloud currently enveloping the dog without transferring it to those of us who would shortly be interacting with other people. There is little that can actually remove skunk smell from dog hair (only time can do that), the best one can hope for is to get to it while it is still fresh and remove enough of it so that the dog’s mere presence no longer brings tears to one’s eyes. It’s a battle best fought with degreaser, baking soda, and elbow grease – the folk remedies of tomato juice and peppermint mouthwash simply leave the dog smelling like a bowl of Tabbouleh that’s gone off.

Balance 0, skunk 1

Rural Transformation

April 5, 2012April 10, 2012 / Bruce Cameron

Through out America, rural communities are changing, evolving, and transforming themselves as they work to reverse the effects of a few decades of outmigration, youth drain, and the general malaise of the rural economy. Big ideas whether from the rush to alternative energy (nothing helps an agrarian economy like $9/bushel corn) or the information economy sweeping in as high-speed internet slowly but surely marches into small town USA.

ReImagine Rural explores how people are building a new future for rural communities. I can across ReImagine Rural thanks to Bob Morris’s post: I Guess I’m A Rural Lawyer — Go Figure. A great essay on where a rural practice can take you, even if you don’t know you’re a rural lawyer. Sarah Larson’s post: Downtown to Small Town: A “City Girl’s” Transition to Rural Practice also speaks to me as her path to rural lawyerdom mirrors mine. 29 years ago, This city boy married his college sweetheart, a wonderful gal whose soul was drawn to rural and wild places, and learned to enjoy rural life.

Serendipity and the Wild Paradigm

March 27, 2012April 10, 2012 / Bruce Cameron

Barn + Hay + Match = DISASTER

March is well on its way to being written up as a decidedly odd month; strangely dry, unusually warm, and replete with eccentric client requests – law school really does not prepare one for the question: “where can I get a good medical kit for disasters?” Now, from a client’s viewpoint, I suppose that a lawyer’s stock in trade does center around disasters – after all, when the average client walks through the door looking to hire a lawyer something in their life has really blown up in a big way – though I am not sure that there is a 1 to 1 mapping between being able to resolve disasters of a legal kind and being able to handle disasters mother nature throws our way.

Now, my search for a good medical kit lead me through the highways and byways of the internet and along the way, serendipity re-acquainted me with Don Lancaster (or at least a Don Lancaster inspired “nickel generator”). For those of you unfamiliar with the geek world’s paleolithic era (the 1970’s), Don Lancaster was an advocate for the concept of micro-scale businesses (at that time the tech world’s solo practitioner) arguing that it was only this type of business that was agile enough to recognize and react to the coming (remember, this is the 70’s) paradigm shifts. Continue reading →

Dear Joseph

March 5, 2012March 2, 2012 / Bruce Cameron

Dear Joseph,

I hope you don’t mind the informality, Mr. Flanders seems a bit stiff for this blog (it’s more Carharts & Red Wings than Brook’s Brothers & Edmund Allens around here). First, thanks for the comment to Beyond Our Field of View; I am always flattered to know that someone other than spammers peruse my miscellaneous ramblings on rural law and rural lawyering. Now, to address some of your questions.

I don’t have a good definition of what or, more precisely, who a rural lawyer is. The prototypical rural lawyer lives and practices in a small town, yet some live in small towns but have offices in larger cities, and some live in larger cities and practice in small towns. By the way, “large” and “small” are relative terms depending on the area of the country you live in (what’s “large” out here on the prairie would look pretty “small” were it plopped down by Los Angeles – my guess is that there are more people in one block of downtown LA than there are in the small town I live in). If you are serving small town clients, you are a rural lawyer in my book.

There is nothing wrong with having both city clients and country clients. Donald Landon in Law Careers and Community Context: A Comparison of Rural and Urban Experience noted that to meet the entrepreneurial imperative of building a practice while still making a living, it was not unusual for rural lawyers to arrange their practice so that they drew clients from small towns as well as metropolitan areas – this is what practicing at suburbia’s edge is all about. No matter what, if you are starting a law practice, you are starting a business and you have to think first in terms of being an entrepreneur – unless you are blessed with a remarkably large personal fortune and practicing law just happens to be your way to do that “charity thing”, the point of this exercise is to make money, so take on city clients, country clients, or clients from other worlds (just be sure to get that retainer up front). Continue reading →

Beyond Our Field of View

March 1, 2012February 29, 2012 / Bruce Cameron / 4 Comments

In reality, serendipity accounts for one percent of the blessings we receive in life, work and love. The other 99 percent is due to our efforts. — Peter McWilliams

In his March 14th, 2011 article in Forbes, Glenn Liopis talks about the concept of earning serendipity – that by actively seeking out unexpected good fortune it becomes easier to reach out and seize that life changing opportunity. Mr. Liopis points out that in a country of boundless possibilities, we have become myopic; unable to see the opportunities available simply because we are unwilling to pull our focus away from our narrow definition of a successful career path.

While Mr. Liopis writes in general terms about this shift in mindset, I was reminded of the opportunities that lie out there in the dark of the night sky – those opportunities that await the lawyers willing to broaden their field of view and look towards small towns and small firms for that great career opportunity.

Now, I will be the first to admit that rural living and a rural practice are not for everyone – this is not a “go rural young lawyer” call to action. But, perhaps, as you lift your eyes from the metropolitan law firm partner track and gaze out toward those small quiet places that interrupt the space between real cities you will discover that there are other opportunities, unexpected opportunities waiting.