An Apology and Thoughts on Small-Town Law Practice

As this is my first blog post in four months, let me start by apologizing. Sorry I neglected you blog. And just like peanut butter and jelly, dinner and a movie, and mismatched officers in buddy-cop films, apologies go well with explanations. So here is my explanation for why I haven't blogged in four months.




First of all, I started a small-town law practice. Not a simple endeavor, especially considering the fact that never, in my entire law school career, did I plan on being a lawyer. Sounds weird? I didn't think so. When I was in college, a mediator told me that law school was the best route into the ADR field. NOTE: If you are a mediator, do not tell this to anyone, especially college students (they are gullible and apt to take on massive student loans, which I learned AFTER law school are not dischargeable in bankruptcy).


So anyway, I've been spending most of my time learning how to be a lawyer and learning Ohio law. As it turns out, obsessively reading caselaw for three years does not make you any more qualified to be an attorney than to be a mediator (well, maybe a little more). But I now know enough to be able to handle most of the clients that other attorneys do not want and, therefore, refer to me. The other part of setting up the office has been setting up the actual office, getting furniture, and buying suits. Thank you thrift stores.



So that is my main excuse for not writing about co-resolution since September. However, this experience has reinforced in me a valuable co-resolution-related lesson.


One of the central elements of co-resolution is the fact that the two coaches help separate disputants but always work together. This ongoing relationship is designed to keep their conduct cooperative and productive--competitive, unfair moves in one case will cause retaliation in later cases and generally spoil the working relationship.


When I first presented this concept, I needed to prove that placing negotiators in this close-knit relationship would make them cooperate. But because "co-resolution" had never been formally attempted, I presented substitutes--situations in which advocates had to work against each other but also had to share a future relationship. These examples included public defenders that continually work against certain prosecutors, negotiators for businesses that frequently interact, and (guess what?) small-town attorneys.


In all of these cases, it was noted that the negotiators built rapport, became able to trust each other, and tended to use cooperative negotiation tactics (even though competitive tactics would create advantages in the present interaction). Explanations for this restrained behavior are that future interactions tend to cast a shadow back onto the present, that people placed in the same boat will be forced to cooperate, and that a positive working relationship will reap repeated gains over time (and is therefore itself valuable and worth protecting). Co-resolution then institutionalizes this effect by designing advocates that work against each other repeatedly but act as a single dispute resolution business or unit.


Well, my experience as a small-town attorney has largely confirmed my predictions. My office is located in Marion, Ohio, which is a small town/city set off from the major population centers in Ohio. And because there is only a handful of attorneys in any given practice area, and because they do not often interact with big-city attorneys, the attorneys in Marion are very amicable towards each other. When I first looked into practicing here, I heard from each and every attorney that Marion was the last refuge of civility in legal practice and that big-city practice was over-zealous, inefficient, and chaotic.


And, so far, my experience here has reflected this wisdom. Attorneys here are friendly with each other and are generally trusting, easygoing, and willing to cooperate (some are reported, by others, to occasionally pull a less-than-honest maneuver, but others wise up to these tendencies). The only public complaint about the Marion attorneys is that they are too friendly with each other, whereas, in the big city the public complaint is the opposite--that attorneys cannot cooperate or be reasonable with each other. And it is no secret among these small-town attorneys as to why they have such a collegial Bar--it is because they work across from each other constantly.


So the lesson for you is that small-town legal practice is a valid illustration of the forces at play in co-resolution. For once, this is my own actual experience and not though experiments on paper. And remember, the difference between these attorneys and co-resolvers is that co-resolvers operate as a single business or entity and focus only on negotiation. Meanwhile, the lesson for me is that I can be an attorney while avoiding the things that my ADR training and liberal parents taught me to dislike about the standard practice of law.


So that's my main excuse for not blogging. The other excuse will be the topic of my next blog.