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Networking online makes practicing law in rural America possible

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August 25, 2014

From Donna Taylor, a county judge in rural Nebraska, in a report by the Washington Post’s Danielle Paquette (@DPAQreport):

There’s a great deal of need for young lawyers in rural communities. There’s plenty of work to go around. To a law school student who is trying to decide, ‘Should I leave the city for a small town?’ I’d say: Give it a try.

……

When I started in Neligh (population 1,569) , there were twelve lawyers. Now there are three. I want to see that change soon. The new debt forgiveness program should be a good drawing card. That wasn’t around when I was getting started — and it would have helped me tons.

Not only does it feel like going back in time, but you can make a real difference.

Practicing law in small town Nebraska means you’re highly visible. You’re a pillar in your community. You’re never going to be another face in the crowd.

Networking through the Internet enables you to take the chance to open shop in rural America. Breaking into a small market as a lawyer and getting enough work from a limited populous made it impossible to do so just ten years ago.

A lawyer in a small town in Nebraska is not limited to practicing in two to three counties. They have the entire state at their disposal.

Eleven or twelve years ago, before I started LexBlog, I was talking with a lawyer in rural Iowa who was starting a family law practice.

I suggested answering the questions he received on a blog. He then complimented the answers with evergreen family law content applicable to Iowa as well as family law in general — the stuff which would be applicable anywhere.

His blog dominated search for various queries on family law. Google knew then, and knows now, where the people who are doing the search are located and where he’s located. It matches them up so his results can be displayed for people in his area, and in many cases, the whole state.

He received emails and calls from all over the state. Many of the cases were no fault divorces which did not require court appearances on his part.

He handled one divorce for a soldier in the gulf war. He never met him and processed the divorce digitally and via phone calls with the court.

His rates were a fraction of the lawyers in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Sioux City, and Iowa City let alone the rates of metropolitan areas like Chicago and New York City.

He was able to offer legal services with digital efficiencies without paying the marketing bills of days gone by. Like a full page ad in the yellow pages for $50,000.

This lawyer was making the law accessible to average Americans, a concept widely discussed but never realized.

Today he could network via Facebook. Perhaps an Iowa Family Law Page where he posts answers to common questions as if he had his own call in radio show.

He’d also use Facebook personally to network with town folk as well as referral sources locally and state wide.

Twitter would also be there to share family law related news and information he picked up in his news reader. He’d get lawyers, bar associations, counselors, and reporters, among other folks, as followers. All people he could get to know and build trust with.

He’d also use LinkedIn or Avvo where he’d have nice profiles that would be pulled up on a search.

Finally, a Google+ profile with an accompanying local search profile would round out his search presence.

Rural America is not for everyone. But you can buy a heck of home for $100,000. A 3,000 square foot home on half an acre or more.

Your kids walk to school from second grade on and you go out to eat with your spouse for $35. Including drinks.

Of course you don’t have what people in larger cities have. But many people live in small towns in middle America not for what they have, but for what they do not have.

As Judge Taylor says, “It feels like going back in time.”

All possible today with networking online.