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The Smith Law Firm is growing, recently adding two new attorneys. From L-R: Margie Delamater, Jade Wolke, Jon Troe, Richard (Richie) Furlong and Tyson Smith. Staff photo Brian Larsen
Recently Tyson Smith added two new attorneys to his law firm Smith Law, PLLC.
The need was there, said Tyson, saying he couldn’t keep up with the growing demand for legal services in the county.
While he grew up in Grand Marais, Tyson didn’t graduate from I.S.D. 166. “Technically my diploma is from Andover High School in Massachusetts, but I was an I.S.D. 166 kid from 1st grade all the way through the beginning of Senior High and worked here during my high school summers. College, I bounced around from CU Boulder, Peking University, Beijing, and my degree is from University of Minnesota (did it in four years despite all the transfers). My law degree is from William Mitchell in 2013.
Before coming home Tyson worked for the Rudy Law Firm (now part of the Fryberger Firm), in Cloquet.
“I was headhunted by a twin cities firm, Bernick Lifson PA in 2014. I was part of the meatgrinder there until 2017, when I moved back to Grand Marais and hung a shingle with dad.”
Meet the new attorneys
The new attorneys are Jon Troe and Richard (Richie) Furlong, III. Also working at the firm are Margie Delamater, paralegal and Jade Wolke, legal assistant. Scott Smith is now formally retired from private practice, but still maintains his court appointed position as the Cook County and Lake County Examiner of Titles.
Q- When asked about the types of cases his law firm accepts or rejects, Tyson responded, “We are a general practice firm. There are only a very few practice areas we always turn away, but we take consults on everything and give referrals for those things we can’t (or don’t want to) handle. We don’t claim to specialize (there are very particular attorneys’ ethics rules governing specialization), but it’s certainly true that we focus on real estate law. Approximately 50 percent of our case load is real estate related. That 50 percent is something of an equal split between transactional files and litigation files.”
Q- Do you see room for continued growth?
A- “There’s no doubt about it, Cook County is an underserved legal community. The need for more general practice lawyers is great. This issue is particularly acute in the area of family law. Every contested divorce or child custody matter needs two lawyers. Besides us, there is only one firm between here and Duluth taking these cases. Unfortunately, this problem exists everywhere in the state outside the metro and is of concern to the State Bar Association. Not many young lawyers are taking the leap, as I did, to practice outstate. Perhaps that’s because it is more work. General practice is far more difficult than specialization because to be competent, you must spend an awful lot of time educating yourself about the law (specialists have the luxury of learning a single area, and then just watching the updates). Or perhaps it’s because of the draw of higher salary and earning potential (metro lawyers’ hourly rates are often much higher than what outstate lawyers charge). Whatever the reason, in my view client outcomes are better when they aren’t driving 2 hours one way to meet their lawyer face to face.
Q- How many cases do you get in a week? A month?
A-“The ebbs and flows make it hard to give a monthly figure, but 6 – 7 new files per week is typical (we’re over 300 for the year). And this doesn’t include Jon’s public defender files (of which there are many). For some perspective, this volume is more than double what I was handling as an associate in the trenches of a busy Minneapolis firm.”
Q- What types of cases do you see the most?
A- There’s no one size fits all answer to this question, but we (like most firms in the real estate practice area) see an awful lot of contested cases over the location of property lines and the right to use driveways.
Meet John Troe
I grew up in the small town of Lakefield, Minnesota in Jackson County. I graduated High School in 2010 and went on to receive a B.A from the University of Minnesota in Morris in 2014. After undergrad, I ventured to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where I worked in special education at Washington High School. This included co-teaching a course to incoming freshman with various difficult circumstances, including legal troubles. That course inspired me to pursue a career in law, and St. Thomas School of Law accepted my admittance in 2019 with a full scholarship. At St. Thomas I created an initiative within the Community Justice Program focused on search warrant reform in Minnesota and simultaneously worked as a contracts law clerk for the University of St. Thomas at large – handling nearly all the University’s independent contractor work. I graduated cum laude from St. Thomas in May of this year, passed the bar, and was sworn in as an attorney this past October.
Overall, I am interested in helping people protect their most valuable assets: their rights, their family, and their land. Here in Grand Marais, I have the unique opportunity to do that. I purposefully sought to work for a small firm like Smith Law over a large city firm because of its connection to the community it serves, and exposure to a wide variety of legal issues. Since I moved here, I have enjoyed volunteering with the Lion’s Club, working out at the YMCA, and hiking the trails in the area. I still need to get some cross-country skis though!
Simply put, I chose Grand Marais as my home because it is a beautiful small town where progress and tradition meet. I am thankful for the opportunity to be a part of it.
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