Dylan’s tune still rings true today

Come gather ‘round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

-Bob Dylan

 

Loaded up the two little ones and headed east last week headed for Ohio, Christmas and my family. Just after we got on the road in Effingham, Ill., on day two of our trip, the sky opened up, the temperature dropped and Interstate 70 slid to a halt. It was a skating rink, and I had a 3-year-old, a 6-month-old and my wife in tow.

We sat on the interstate for three or four hours and slowly passed the cars and trucks sprinkled in the ditch all through Illinois and western Indiana, crawling toward the holiday festivities in Dayton.

Plenty of time to think, and plenty of time to watch the DVD player that made it possible for the 3-year-old to sit in a minivan on the highway for multiple hours.

It gave me a lot of time to think.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.

I spent a lot time thinking about what will happen in the new year with the business of law for a small shop.

My partner recently got a ticket out in the middle of nowhere in Missouri, and he has gotten letters from law firms soliciting his speeding ticket business.

I was very aware of the direct mailing going on in the various areas of the law soliciting business from folks who are getting sued for credit card debt or foreclosure.

But a $149 appearance fee for a speeding ticket?

I get that if you have 10 or 15 tickets at a single appearance, then you surely are making some good money for that appearance. I just don’t see direct mail for speeding tickets.

However, our business, like our country’s leadership, is definitely changing.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

I like this job. I want it to work, but I constantly worry about the dynamic economy that is the small scale practice of the law.

My young family is definitely in need of some steady income over the next 20 years, and now more than ever I’m concerned that we small hustlers are not going to survive. All the personal injury people that seem to make the kind of money that would provide me the security I’m looking for are on the sides of buses and in between segments of Oprah.

Biggish firms south of I-70 are hustling speeding tickets with direct mail. It seems so much of our economy is based on a big open funnel: big companies taking in business on a grand scale and funneling it down to local offices or outlets. But that isn’t the only model.

Certainly there is a growing movement to stay local and small in the food industry and others. But what does this model tell us about the law business?

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

All I really know for sure is the economy of the law will be different soon. I like the model I’ve operated on in the past. Low overhead, keep people coming back to you, and talk to people when they make your phone ring.

But in 2010, I don’t know that this model will be enough. Do you need a gimmick? Do you need an established name?

It seems most big firms will be around after our economy is restructured, but many small firms will not.

I want to be one of the little guys that survives.

I guess the only real mantra must focus on awareness and flexibility.

Change is the only fact for the coming years. It’s very similar to what Mr. Dylan was talking about in 1963.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.

I think all we can do is have a happy new year and work to be in the new order of things. Whatever that order may be.

 

Craig Napier is a member of White & Napier in Kansas City, performing litigation for small businesses and families throughout the metro area. He can be reached at [email protected].