It is a commonly held belief among law students that practicing law in a small town is boring and not sufficiently rewarding from a financial standpoint.<\/p>\n
That simply is not true.<\/p>\n
A really good lawyer will do well almost any place. If you are not going to strive to be a really good lawyer, you won\u2019t do well any place.<\/p>\n
If you go to a small town to practice you will be surprised, if you have patience, just what you will find.<\/p>\n
For 43 years I have practiced in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, a town of about 45,000. For most of that time the majority of my practice was business law with an emphasis on mergers and acquisitions, but I also did a fair amount of estate planning and real estate. After my first\u00a0five years of practice, this is all that I did.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
To give two examples, for most of that time I represented a cable television\/radio station company that owned cable systems over much of the United States and as many as seven radio stations in the Midwest. There were 450 cable franchises at one time. I handled the purchase of all of them and ultimately handled the sale of most of them. I was also on their board, and the owner became one of my closest friends and still is today.<\/p>\n
I also represented a manufacturing company that manufactured seating and d\u00e9cor mainly for McDonald\u2019s and other Quick Service restaurants around the world. I also sat on their board, and their owner also became one of my closest friends and still is today.<\/p>\n
These are\u00a0just two examples. There are many more.<\/p>\n
The naysayers are going to say this is an exception. I think that\u2019s baloney. I know many very successful lawyers in the small towns of Wisconsin that are just as or more successful than I was.<\/p>\n
Now these things don\u2019t happen by sitting back and waiting for the clients\u00a0to come to you. That will not happen unless they think that you are the best lawyer they can find for what they need. You have to do all that is required to become the best lawyer they can find and figure out a subtle way to let them know. Putting an ad in the Yellow Pages simply won\u2019t do. You need to get involved in the community. This means everything from the Chamber of Commerce; the YMCA; your church, mosque or synagogue; the Rotary Club; and many other community service activities. This will make you feel good, you will make many friends, and it is much more effective than advertising. And, if you are lucky you will even help someone at the same time.<\/p>\n
And if they engage you, even for a menial task, you must treat them exceptionally well. They will then come back and use you more and more. Helping them with ordinary legal services in an ordinary way won\u2019t cut it. They must receive extraordinary service with the highest standards of scholarship and care.<\/p>\n
You will make more money than you ever dreamed of. In a small town, lawyers are still respected. You will be a leader of your community. They are wonderful places to raise a family. Lawyers in a small town are more civil and less contentious. You will have a very satisfying life.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t forget the small towns of Wisconsin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is a commonly held belief among law students that practicing law in a small town is boring and not sufficiently rewarding from a financial standpoint. That simply is not true. A really good lawyer will do well almost any place. If you are not going to strive to be a really good lawyer, you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-practice","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}