Myopia

/ Bruce Cameron

There are certain presumptions that spring to mind when one hears the phrase “small town lawyer”; the stereotype seems to be a lawyer  (himself a strange amalgamation of Matlock, Atticus Finch, Lincoln, and Oliver Wendell Holmes) who has set up shop in some bucolic backwoods town and divides his time between tending to client matters and whittling. The trouble is that an exact definition of the breed is hard to come by; well the “lawyer” part is fairly simple, it’s that “small town” part that gives one fits. Even the US Census Bureau has problems with defining what a small town is, preferring to use classifications like “micropolitean” (a rural area that contains at least one urban area with a population of at least 10,000) or “place” (a territory, population, or housing unit not classified as urban or designated as an extended city). It’s always nice to know that one’s place in the world is defined more by what one is not that what one is.

Even my definition of the small town lawyer – the lawyer practicing beyond suburbia’s sprawl – is fairly generic, and when you consider Michael Sylvester’s argument, perhaps a bit short sighted. Mr. Sylvester practices in Shenzhen, China a bustling metropolis of 10+ million (not exactly the first place that springs to mind when one thinks “small town”) providing services to the Shenzhen expatriate community – a small (500,000?) city within the larger community. Now out here on the prairie, when a half-million people congregate in one spot we tend to consider that either a metropolis or a really fine turnout for the church potluck (everybody bring a dish to pass), but in a country of 1.3 billion, in a town of 10 million, 500,000 must seem like a tiny drop in a very large bucket.Water Drop

Monday’s Gleanings

/ Bruce Cameron

A few bits gathered from across the web:

  • The Career Services Office (CSO) at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law provides this information interview lawyer Mike Akerly. Mr. Akerly started his career as a small town lawyer.
  • It appears that I’ve missed the performance dates, but it is still good to see that the most famous fictional small town lawyer in America is once again receiving rave reviews in Sag Harbor, NY, in the Bay Street Theater‘s performance of To Kill a Mockingbird.
  • For those of you interested in another small town lawyer’s perspective, J. Burton Hunter III is offering just that in his blog “A Small Town Lawyer’s Perspective“. Mr. Hunter is a bit more direct with his prose than I, but is still a good read (if you want to peruse another opinionated rural lawyer’s blog).

My Annual Campaign

/ Bruce Cameron

It's buy nothing day It’s that time of year (the one time of the year) when Rural Lawyer gets a bit political and takes the time to celebrate Buy Nothing Day. So, rather than joining the lemmings flocking to the stores, here are some “rural” ways to slow down and enjoy the day.

  • Climb a tree  – stay up there a while
  • Have a picnic – don’t skimp, go all out – wicker hamper, gingham blanket, china & crystal
  • Eat a lobster – with your hands, without a bib
  • Go for a walk – take your SO & hold hands
  • Play with your kids – until they’re tired
  • Take a nap
  • Have Tea – a really Tea, complete with  sandwiches, trifles, fancy hats and sharp suits

And if you’ve got to spend money, considering sending some to these folks

Thanks-giving

/ Bruce Cameron

Wild Turkeys

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Living around farmers reminds one that life is an ephemeral thing, something that waxes and wanes with nature’s rhythms (today’s pig is tomorrow’s bacon) but, for the vast majority of us these small reminders are merely items of interest and not something that we focus on (the chicken that provided the eggs for your breakfast was interested in it, the pig that provided the bacon was really focused on it). Yet, when a friend’s holiday letter mentions they’ve been diagnosed with a stage 4 glioblastoma a few weeks prior, I find myself becoming a bit more focused, so this Thanksgiving, I find myself a bit more thankful for my health, my friends, and my family. I also find myself reviewing my office’s “in case of …” kit.

My “in case of …” kit is basically my backup system for me. Basically, it’s a set of documents that provide a quick guide to my filing system, mission critical software, and basic procedures so that my backup attorney has some rudimentary grasp of how to either run my practice in the short term or close it down if necessary. Ideally, I would review my kit on a regular basis (hey, I back up my computer daily, I should at least back up myself every few months), but the reality is that it takes life handing me a good swift kick before I get the impetus to block out the time. This year, it looks like I have something to do on Black Friday other than being mauled at the mall.

Happy Thanksgiving and Slàinte mhòr agus a h-uile beannachd duibh (’cause gaelic makes a nice change from latin).

Solo by Choice – The New Release

/ Bruce Cameron

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. — Henry David Thoreau

Yesterday, Carolyn Elefant announced that the second edition of her book Solo by Choice (actually it is a two volume set – there is also a companion volume entitled, appropriately, Solo by Choice, The Companion Guide). In a nutshell, Solo by Choice 2011-2012 brings the original work into the age of Social Media, Cloud Computing and the realities of being a post-2008 economic collapse solo attorney and adds to Carolyn’s remarkably lucid and thoughtful prose the voices of other solo attorneys – basically, Carolyn explains the theory, the greek chorus provides a bit of in-the-trenches reality.

For anyone thinking about starting a solo practice, there are two must read books – Jay Foonberg’s How to Start & Build a Law Practice and Carolyn’s Solo by Choice. In my opinion, Carolyn’s book has always been the more accessible of the two and has been much more relevant to this rural solo – I’ve found that her take on things finds more resonance with my rural clients (perhaps its just that she’s just better at explaining things in ways I understand).

This new edition maintains those qualities – Carolyn’s text is still a joy to read; yet I am of two minds about the material provided by those other solos. I like having other voices, other explanations of the whys, wherefores and what-works and think its great to have those been-there-done-that experiences as object lessons. Unfortunately I find that the change in the “voice” of the work slows the flow of my reading.

Now, this new edition is not all roses and Skittles. There are a few places where a little tighter editing would have caught the odd typo – this is more apparent in the companion volume where the answers to the 34 questions read as if they were taken verbatim from an interview. While this doesn’t really affect the books’ readability, its does make them seem slightly less polished. But this is a minor nit – my biggest concern is that my copy of the new edition will become as dog-eared, tattered, and abused as my copy of the original.