Regional legal practice provides huge opportunities for firms and young lawyers alike, but for one regional practitioner attracting early career lawyers into the regions is proving to be restrictive.
Dan Creevey, principal of Toowoomba’s Creevey Horrell Lawyers, said generations of lawyers in small country towns were retiring leaving communities unserviced.
“I just think it’s a great opportunity,” Mr Creevey said.
“Lawyers are leaving the bush. I’m very motivated to build this regional network and I think there’s a great opportunity and no one else is doing it.”
Creevey Horrell has recently seized on several opportunities to expand, with offices now in Chinchilla, Roma, Townsville and Brisbane. Mr Creevey said the work offered a high level of complexity and strong professional challenge.
“There’s always been this disparaging attitude towards the regional practitioner, thinking that if you’re not in Eagle Street [in Brisbane] wearing the pinstripe suit you’re not as good,” he said.
“But you’ve got a diversity of work out here that makes it interesting.
“You’ve got petroleum and gas. There’s a lot of wealth out there, so that means succession planning, big property transactions, multi-million-dollar litigation.
“We handle large contract disputes, personal injuries. There’s good, meaty legal work, which is what we’re servicing.”
Mr Creevey said while there were business opportunity and professional satisfaction, attracting lawyers to the regions was what holds the firm’s growth back.
“I’d love people to start thinking of this as an alternative career option because now that we’ve got this model going – there’s 30 of us in the firm, we are all over Queensland,” he said.
“That’s the challenge for us: getting people who actually want to live and be part of a community.”
Finding answers to the trend away from the regions is hard but Mr Creevey said his firm was looking at its own solutions by helping with home ownership.
“If we get the right person, we’ll put a deposit down and get them in a home,” Mr Creevey said.
“Our model is: get the right person, we’ll get a deposit on the house. When you’re living here you’ve got cheaper living, so you can get your share to such a stage that you can, if you want to, go back to the city.”
He said the worst-case scenario was that if you stayed for three years, you’d have a house and enough equity to move back – but hopefully they would fall in love with Chinchilla or Roma and stay.
“Or move into another centre – I could do with three lawyers in Toowoomba because I can’t even get them here.”
He said the firm’s Townsville office opened after a solicitor, originally from Far North Queensland, wanted to return home after a period in the south-east corner.
“And he’s been up there three years. He’s now got three lawyers working with him because he’s in the community. And that’s the key.”
Mr Creevey said that was the challenge: getting people who actually want to live and be part of a community.
“You need kids that have a bit of a rural background or a regional background – to come from Rocky or something like that,” he said.
“That’s the key. You need to have someone who’s prepared to live and work and be in the Rotary Club or the Lions Club or, you know, the local gun club.”
Mr Creevey said for people who did, it was a great place to live.
“It’s a different way of life; it’s slower.”
Despite the distance involved, Mr Creevey said technology had made a huge change to the way he was able to work with clients.
“There can be a perception that country people are backward, but they’re very IT‑savvy, so you can work with people over a huge area,” he explained.
“But you’ve got to have someone in the community. You need to have someone on the ground.”
While the challenges facing regional lawyers presented him with a business challenge, Mr Creevey said it was also a loss to communities.
“I think it’s more significant than simple convenience because today you can always pick up and find a lawyer,” he said.
“But it’s more the sense of having justice done in the community and having someone there like the old days – you’d have two lawyers and they could fight for one side or the other side.”
He said a huge frustration was that even a centre the size of Toowoomba did not have a Supreme Court justice.
“It’s really appalling when you think that you just don’t ever file anything in the Supreme Court in Toowoomba because you never get on,” he explained.
“They come up, Supreme Court justices, and it’s always taken up with crime.
“So, if you want to get a matter heard, you go to Brisbane for the Supreme Court. That’s a bad thing.
“I’ve sued the council and got a judgment against the regional council, and that’s the sort of thing that should be seen and heard in your community.
“It completes a community, having a good presence of justice there.”
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