My position as a barometer

I was taken by the numbers of foreclosures I had to cry out yesterday. It seems as if the number of foreclosures that I have to perform in any month serves as a barometer of how bad the economy is doing at that time. In addition, when real estate closings are coming hot and heavy it seems as if that serves as an indication that the economy is going well. Cindy said that my practice seems to serve as a barometer for the economy. I suppose there is some truth to that.

Since I have been practicing law, I have noticed that a lot of what I do gives me an indication of how the economy is going. They say that an attorney's practice is recession proof, in that there is work to do no matter how good or bad the economy is going. I can say that there is a superficial truth to that; however, the truth is that we suffer just like everybody else when the times are hard. I guess the difference is that no one has sympathy for us when we suffer.

Our position in the community is such that everyone tries to avoid having to deal with us, wants to pay us as little as possible, tries to get as much free legal advice as possible, and would just prefer that we were an unnecessary part of the community. It seems like banks want to eliminate a large portion of what we do as concerns banking and real estate practice. Once upon a time, anytime someone wanted to get a loan from the bank in which the bank was taking title to real estate as collateral, the bank would hire a local attorney to search title and conduct the closing. Now the banks have taken that away from the attorneys with the exception of when there is a purchase involved in the process. Most banks would prefer to eliminate the attorneys from the process altogether.

I don't really understand this. Several years ago, the Georgia Supreme Court issued a ruling in which they stated that anytime a deed goes of record, whether it is a warranty deed or security deed, an attorney should be involved for the benefit of the parties. This ruling might as well have been an attempt to stop the wind, because most banks seem to be conducting their own closings when there is no sale involved. At one time, I provided a copy of the Court's ruling to a local bank and was met with utter silence. I wonder if the bank's attorneys even saw the ruling.

So the matters for which people come to see us continually get smaller and smaller. Then on top of that the big firms seem to grasp for a larger share of the pie. At one time law firms in Atlanta didn't venture too far outside the perimeter of Atlanta to represent clients or perform closings. Now they are a big presence everywhere in the state.

The ultimate question is whether or not people in towns like Griffin or otherwise are served better by having resort to the big law firms in Atlanta. The truth of the matter is that someone outside the beltway gets service by paralegals and other paraprofessionals for the same amount of money they would have paid the lawyers in their home towns and then have to travel to offices in North Atlanta to get the job done.

This forces us outside the perimeter to work harder and be more convenient for the people we serve. So I travel to people's houses or communities and meet with them at inconvenient times and places and spend more money to get less.

When I first contemplated becoming an attorney, I wanted to be an attorney because it seemed that they merited respect in the community. But now we are perceived as shysters and charletons who prey on the unwary. Is it fun to be an attorney? Truthfully a lot of times it is. I do enjoy my colleagues; lawyers are usually the most interesting, collegial people I know. However, the day to day stresses of this profession can weigh you down. It often makes me wonder if I would have been better off doing something else. Cultural barometer notwithstanding.