Little Big Town

Marcus Lock will never forget the time he snowmobiled 20 miles in the dead of winter, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, to meet with a client who lived where the plows couldn’t go.

“I don’t make that mistake anymore,” Lock says with a laugh.

It’s not the only adventure that Lock, a civil litigator in Gunnison, has weathered. A mediator once helped him sneak out of a meeting, past an increasingly loud group of angry residents, through the Underground Mining Museum in Mineral County. 

“My practice is unexpected,” he says. “I’ve fallen in multiple ditches in on-site visits and once rolled a client’s ATV down a hillside, which unfortunately happened to have his tools in the back of it. I had a preliminary injunction hearing in the courthouse where they tried Alfred Packer for cannibalism in 1874. Things are exciting out here in the Wild West.”

Below, Lock and three other attorneys discuss law and life in the small towns they now call home.

Where They Came From

Amy Cook Olson, Klein Cook Olson; medical malpractice defense; Steamboat Springs: I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, in another small community comparable to where I live today. Both have ties to Nordic skiing, believe it or not. The Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club was founded by Carl Howelsen, who also founded the Norge Ski Club over 100 years ago. I serve as a board member of the SSWSC, one of the oldest winter sports clubs in the U.S., producing more than 100 Olympian athletes.

Ryan Jarvis, JVAM; water and real estate law; Basalt: I grew up in suburban Seattle in a town called Bothell. Basalt has something like 4,000 or 5,000 people; Bothell now probably has about 50,000.

Georgina Melbye, Kalamaya Goscha; personal injury/family law/criminal defense; Aspen: On our small farm north of Boulder, we had horses and we grew hay, just my mom and I, and it was a lot of work. I grew up riding and rode competitively through college. It was pretty rural, on a dirt road, and your closest neighbor was maybe a mile away. But we weren’t that far from Boulder, so it was a nice combo of being out there but still having some access to conveniences.

Marcus Lock, Law of the Rockies; natural resources and real estate law; Gunnison: I’m a Southern boy. I grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, surfing in the summer, skateboarding in the winter, and playing beach volleyball. That’s really different than the negative 20 degrees in the winter here. At the same time, Virginia Beach and Gunnison are both resort communities and there are a lot of similarities in that regard.

Why Colorado?

Cook Olson: My husband and I have three children that we wanted to raise in a small community, and we chose Steamboat Springs because our kids are competitive skiers.

Jarvis: I always thought I wanted to live in Colorado. When I graduated law school in 2011, the economy was really tough for brand-new lawyers and a lot of people weren’t hiring. My wife and I decided to come to the Roaring Fork Valley and try to make it work. We just showed up and I pounded the pavement. After about two years here, we did decide to go back to Seattle and we quickly realized that we would much rather be here. We moved back here for good in 2014.

Melbye: I really envisioned myself practicing in Denver or Boulder, and then Career Services at CU Law said, “Hey, we sent your resume to this small firm in Aspen that’s looking to hire an associate attorney. Would you be interested?” I grew up skiing, so I said, “Sure, why not?” We’re four hours from a major airport in Denver. It’s an hour to the nearest Target.

Lock: [Two judges] introduced me to a number of different law firms and water lawyers all across the Western Slope. Traveling from Denver, you come over Monarch Pass, 12,000 feet, beautiful alpine environment, trees. And that’s what my wife had in her head in terms of where we were moving to. You drop down off Monarch Pass and the trees start thinning out and it’s pretty much just sagebrush. I could see my wife’s face start to fall as we drove into Gunnison, but we’ve been here 20 years now and we both love it.

Drawn to Law

Cook Olson: I became a lawyer to advocate and to try and make a positive impact in people’s lives. I live in the world of medical negligence claims, of doctors, hospitals and nurses, and it’s an incredibly rewarding area to work in, to advise and help healthcare providers navigate litigation. They’re healers.

Jarvis: My mother was a personal injury lawyer. From a young age, I saw her helping people. I think I’m a natural helper and it was attractive to me to find a career where I could help people.

Melbye: In high school, I found myself interested in the types of activities that set you up well for a law career—like model United Nations and debate. I found all of that stuff to be really interesting.

Lock: I was a wildlife biology guy, working for the Arizona Game and Fish Department, and I was out in the field four or five days a week, trapping bats and other critters. My wife was pregnant, and we were broke. I remember having an MCAT in one hand and an LSAT in the other, and thinking to myself, “Well, law school’s only three years, and med school’s four. So I think I’ll take the LSAT.”

Narrowing It Down

Cook Olson: I wanted to be in a courtroom, for sure. I started out, as many lawyers did, as a public defender. I had three years under my belt of litigating in criminal law, and then migrated to civil, and went directly to medical negligence, which is just a fascinating area of law to learn medicine alongside your clients.

Jarvis: I always had been interested in natural resource and environmental issues. Colorado water law is quite unique and quite a substantial practice area. Fortunately, at my first firm I had a gentleman who practiced water law and was willing to take me under his wing.

Melbye: I went to law school thinking that I would be more of a transactional lawyer and not necessarily arguing cases in the courtroom, in front of a jury. But I did a mock trial and I realized, “Hey, this is actually really interesting.” So I decided to take an internship at the Boulder DA’s office, and I really liked it. My overall goal was just to be somewhere where I would get to try cases, and I was less concerned about what type of cases those would be.

Lock: My specialty really kind of chose me. I spent a couple of summers living out of my car and backpacking through the Rocky Mountain West. I was, first and foremost, interested in the geographic region more so than any particular area of law. Given that I had a background as a wildlife biologist, I was drawn to natural resources law and, in particular, water law. And now I spent a bunch of my time doing real estate development. I never would’ve seen that coming.

Brick by Brick

Jarvis: It was a challenge showing up to a small community where I didn’t really know anyone. But if you show up eager and a little bit impatient, you can definitely build a practice. And that’s what happened to me.

Melbye: There’s this aspect of being the newcomer and trying to put yourself out there and make connections and work your way into a legal community that’s already really tight-knit; in a small community, people remember you. I think reputation is probably more important in a small community than it is in a large community in terms of making sure you’re going to continue to have work.

Lock: Word of mouth is like fire in a small rural community. I was very fortunate to build my practice in a relatively short amount of time just by keeping my head down and doing a good job. But I learned my lesson early on, the hard way. One of my very first clients had a water law problem, and I rolled up my sleeves and did my best to figure it out and came up with a solution that I thought was succinct and effective and sent him a letter and a bill for $750. And he fired me because it was too expensive. It was a good lesson to learn early on: Have a conversation with the client about what it’s going to cost to resolve.

Pros and Cons

Cook Olson: Steamboat is a very tight-knit community where everyone knows and supports one another. For example, everyone comes together with the United Way to make sure their community center is stocked for anyone who doesn’t have a place to go for Thanksgiving. Our club, SSWSC, is community-focused on building champions on and off the hill. STARS provides life-changing experiences for participants with cognitive and physical disabilities through skiing and other outdoor activities. The drawback to rural practice? You’re going to be distant from clients and from courtrooms at times, but it’s very manageable and workable.

Jarvis: You get to know everyone. You also get to see the impact of your legal work on your community and your neighbors. We have world-class recreational opportunities—skiing, fishing, mountain biking, hiking—that are largely unparalleled. Costco is almost two hours away, and if my son wants to go to a Rockies game, that’s a 3 ½-hour drive each way. But I think the tradeoffs of what you gain out here are more than worth it.

Melbye: There’s a little bit more collegiality [in the legal community]. We extend more grace to one another because our families are friends. Their kids go to the same school, we go out to the same restaurants. And we cross paths with each other as opposing counsel time and time again because obviously there are just fewer attorneys. There can also potentially be a challenge to try to balance advocating for your case when you practice close to the people involved on the other side. We may have a lawsuit against a building company that a good friend’s brother owns.

Lock: We work hard here, but my commute is like seven minutes. I live across from a golf course, and they groom it for cross-country skiing in the winter. I can literally ski out my front door and onto the course.

“The” Case

Cook Olson: I was most inspired by a cardiothoracic surgeon client who dedicated his life, day in and out, performing complex heart surgery. [Seeing] the expertise, talent and command of the operating room while he performed an open-heart surgery, while I watched and photographed the procedure in preparation for trial, and ultimately described the surgery to the jury, was a pivotal point in my career. I was hooked.

Jarvis: Early in my career, a young married couple built a house and had a contractor who agreed to do some of the work for a certain amount of money, and he did the work and the bill was substantially more than what my clients expected, and they couldn’t pay. The contractor filed a lien on the property and sued them to foreclose on their house, and they were just panicking and looking for some help. I got involved and we learned that there were substantial irregularities regarding the contractor’s invoices. We were able to negotiate a resolution that effectively saved my clients’ house.

Melbye: I worked on a wrongful death case. We were able to handle the case professionally and quickly to see our client get the best possible result. We created a strong bond with the client and her family, so when we were able to get a good result, it meant that much more.

Lock: I was part of a team that worked on marriage equality in Colorado. I was part of the team of lawyers that worked to ensure that incarcerated Coloradans had access to timely mental health care. I’ve done a lot of work with an entity called Western Rivers Conservancy that has protected and made publicly accessible miles of rivers in Colorado and throughout the West. I think the most meaningful case that I’ve had is when I was a younger lawyer. There was this one kid who applied for admission to the bar and got denied. He’d made some mistakes and I helped him work through those issues and ultimately get admitted to the bar. We gave him an opportunity to join this profession.

Do You Miss the City?

Jarvis: In Seattle, pretty much on every other block you can get a bánh mì for six bucks. There are no Vietnamese restaurants, probably, within 200 miles of me now.

Cook Olson: We have a great group of female litigation lawyers that get together periodically to talk about the law, or not to talk about the law. It’s not that I miss the big city; I just make a point to get to Denver often so that I can collaborate with other lawyers, especially this group that I work and socialize with.

Melbye: I don’t get mail at my house, so we have to have a P.O. box. I do miss getting to be more in-person in some of the legal world networking events that happen in larger cities. That can feel a little isolating.

Lock: Food, art and music would be the top three, but you’d be surprised. You can get great catfish in Lake City, which is just south of here, and Cajun food in Pagosa Springs. The Center for the Arts in Crested Butte has an amazing world-class facility, and the Creede Center for the Arts is working on their own.

Why They Stay

Cook Olson: I like the sense of community and giving back and, I guess more frivolous, skiing and having access to a world-class resort. We have a small working farm on the Elk River, which you wouldn’t be able to have in a big city like Denver. My daughter Avery and I also have an apiary, Bee Bomb Honey, and we sell our mountain wildflower honey and our comb and also try to help maintain a healthy, sustainable bee population in this small community.

Melbye: We skied [when I was a kid], but it was never a central part of my life. Now I like to be on the slopes 50-plus days a year. And then, with the friendships I’ve made here, I just feel connected and cared for. I’m super fortunate for my coworkers.

Lock: When I travel for work these days, I drive through some of the most beautiful scenery that Colorado has to offer—as opposed to being in the security line at DIA.

Jarvis: I live in the mountains, within 20 minutes of world-class recreation. I absolutely love that aspect of it. And from a professional perspective, I’ve built a practice over the last dozen years or so, and I think I’m helping people solve their problems, which was what I set out to do. I couldn’t be happier.