Small Town Law Practice

Quite unexpectedly (being as I am a virtual recluse in a town which is but a satellite of the metropolis) I have been asked to meet with a third year law student who apparently has ambitions to practice law in a rural environment and seeks my take on it. He heard of me through one of his law professors who is a family friend. I understand the scholar is from a smaller urban centre and supposedly has hopes of returning to it upon being called to the Bar. Until now I hadn’t imagined that a small town law practice would hold any interest for an aspiring lawyer, not because I denigrate it but more because I felt it to be uncool or archaic (even if moderately quaint).

The Trustee

Although it smacks of the esoteric, the term “trustee” may nonetheless arise not infrequently in daily communication. For example, there is the “estate trustee” (what some may equate with the now historical expression “executor and trustee”), trustee-in-bankruptcy, board of trustees, trust company and a mere trustee. In its broadest sense, a trustee can refer to anyone who holds property, authority or a position of trust or responsibility for the benefit of another (which may in the case of boards of trustees include the public benefit or other charitable purpose). In all cases the trustee may be a natural person or a corporation, whether or not they are a prospective beneficiary.

Under Siege

Since the brutal market melt-down in 2008, when years of accumulated savings of many people simply evaporated over-night, there has been a pervasive and unsettling sense of being under siege. Like any successful military operation, the attack came unexpectedly and lethally, causing a feeling of instant isolation and surrender. The spin-offs of the initial calamity include imperceptible recovery, continued unemployment, forced re-thinking of the worth of a university education, the growing need to abandon hopes of early retirement (or worse, the need to return to work), a stepped-up acceptance of the diminution of the value of money, an acknowledgement of the pragmatism of raising the age of right to Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security, the paradox of low interest rates and commensurate laughable return on investment and a general loss of any candidacy for entitlement.