Schuss for the Fun of It: Love of skiing is shaping practices from Miami to Park CityAuthor(s): PATRICIA GALLAGHERSource: ABA Journal, Vol. 82, No. 12 (DECEMBER 1996), pp. 86-87Published by: American Bar AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27839346 .

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OUT OF THE OFFICE

Schuss for the Fun of It Love of skiing is shaping practices from Miami to Park City BY PATRICIA GALLAGHER

There are lawyers who make time between telephone calls, brief

preparation and court appearances for the occasional round of golf, game of tennis or jog around the park.

Then there are lawyers?in cluding Donald A. Fowler Jr. of Kingfield, Maine?who ski.

Nearly five years ago, at age 50, he gave up his practice at Pierce, Atwood, Scribner, Allen in Portland to hang out a shingle as a solo prac titioner. A Maine native and life long skier, Fowler set up shop in the heart of Maine's ski country.

"The only reason we went to Portland was to go to school or go to work," Fowler says of himself and his family.

Fowler reports ging 100 days on 1

"

slopes last year. He also took a ski trip to Italy. Getting to the of-^ fice by 6:30 a.m. most days allows time for a few| morning runs, he says.

"If we have fresh snow and ! don't have to be in court... then '. can get out there and be back be fore my secretary goes to lunch."

For Fowler and other skier- \ lawyers, time on the hills is as im portant as time in the office. Some

j cut back hours to ski, some move^ their practices, others turn to ski related businesses. Among these "ski bums," the schedules of ski resorts rival court schedules in importance.

Austin E. Stewart II joined that small fraternity of skiing law yers last year when he bolted from Barton, Klugman & Oetting in Los Angeles after just two years.

"Part of it was wanting to chuck the big city," says Stewart, now a resident of Ketchum, Idaho. Part of it was the chance to continue his law career, as well as run a retail bagel chain.

But most of Stewart's motiva tion was provided by the Sun Valley ski area and the chance to ski 40-60

Patricia Gallagher is a free lance writer in Chicago.

days a year. "If Fm going to be work ing my tail off, I want to be able to get out and ski," the 31-year-old New York City native says.

A similar philosophy spurred Michael E. Hingle of Los Gatos, Calif., to leave a San Jose law firm in September and strike out on his own. "I can make more

money, work less?

and I can ski." Last year, Hin

gle, who is 36, man

aged 42 ski days inj the Lake Tahoe area, de

After Hingle establishes his solo practice, he hopes to cut back to a four day workweek to in

crease his skiing time at Tahoe.

Right now, he doesn't need that fifth billing day since a corpo rate client provides him with a sea son's ski pass (worth about $1,200] in exchange for his service on its board.

"I haven't found a way to live

[at Lake Tahoe] yet, but at least I've found a way to have someone pay for it," Hingle says.

Living in ski country is, of course, the most efficient way of working more ski time into a

lawyer's schedule. Michael P. Williams can ski al

most year-round, thanks to heavy snowfall in Syracuse, N.Y., where he is an intellectual property law

k attorney for Harris Beach & Wil B cox. He manages about 70 days of

skiing a year, some of them on

cross-country skis on the land sur ft rounding his home in Fabius. mm Tom Duffy Sr., a Hayward,

H|Wis., solo practitioner, logs about

10 hours a week on skis, train ing for the annual Birkebein

^^^ft er cross-country ski race in

^^Hk Hayward. Duffy's volunteer

^^^K position as chairman of the

^^^Ht 55-kilometer race also takes

^^^^ i him across the globe to

^^^^Bk participate in? ^^^^^Bh^^^ as well as eval ^^^^^^^HBfe^. uate?other ^^^^^^^^^^^Hk cross-coun ^^^^^^^^^^^H| try ski

^^^^^^^^^^^^V the Idaho law ^^^^^^^^^^K^ yer/bagel en ^^^^^^^^^Hftrepreneur, used ^^^^^^^^^ to drive five hours ^^^^^^^^H| from Los Angeles ^^^HH^^^H to find the best HPP^^^Hp skiing. Now that

^^^m he lives about 200

^^HF yards from a ski lift, i^^^m he can fit a few runs

^^^K into the middle of a

^^^m busy day. J^^Hp: "When you live in

jfl^H the city, that's impos ^B^p sible. It's a daylong en

^^^m deavor," he says.

A Northern Migration ^^^m But even ski-hungry ^^^m lawyers in warmer climes I^^HF can collect an impressive

stack of lift tickets. Jack Shawde, a part

ner at Shutts & Bowen in Miami, squeezes in about 30 days a

year on the slopes?as well as time for mountain climbs?by putting in extra hours before and after ski trips. "You have to be willing to

86 ABA JOURNAL / DECEMBER 1996 david madison

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work at it," the 44-year-old bank ruptcy lawyer says.

It helps that fellow attorneys are flexible about scheduling meet ings, and that his fellow partners trust him to do his job, he says. "It also helps that I'm not married."

For some lawyers, any motiva tion to log hours behind desks and in front of benches is no match for the allure of long days on snow

capped mountains. Aaron Katz of Los Gatos, Cal

if., grew tired of the profession after 10 years of practice in the San Jose area. "What I really liked was ski ing," he says, "and I was really good at putting together trips."

So three years ago, Katz began organizing what he calls "ski sa faris" for lawyers and other profes sionals who want to combine up scale ski vacations with continuing education courses. His business, Skiing for Smarten, has taken groups to ski resorts throughout the United States, as well as to Canada and France; a New Zealand trip is planned for next year.

Snowboard enthusiast and re cent law school graduate Maria Mc Nulty doesn't even plan to practice law. Instead, she intends to use her legal skills to open a sports agency. The 26-year-old Park City, Utah, resident also wants to parlay her role as president of the Utah Snow board Association into a behind the-scenes role in the snowboarding competition at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Whether they travel hundreds of miles or just hundreds of feet to ski, whether they ski on weekends or most every day of the year, whether they've changed their practices a little or a lot to accom modate their sport, skiing lawyers agree that time on skis provides a needed break from the stress of lawyering.

When Shawde leaves the hot, flat terrain of Miami for his favorite ski getaway in Canada, he leaves cell phone, fax machine and beeper behind. As a helicopter drops him and skiing companions into foot upon foot of virgin snow in the British Columbia wilderness, "You really do get a sense of getting away from it all," he says.

The solitude of a ski lift allows for true contemplation, adds Hin gle. "Time up on the mountains gives you a lot of time to think," he says, "and I'd have to say skiing

makes you a better lawyer."

o* o

<5>

Traditional downhill skiing isn't the only sport in season at America's ski resorts anymore.

In recent years, faced with an aging population of skiers and unpredictable snowfalls, the ski industry has discovered several new ways to "make rain" from snow. Among them:

Snowboarding. "Riders/' as they are called, ski on boards shaped much like surfboards. Surfers, in fact, are credited with launching the snowboard industry in the early 1960s. The sport grew slowly, though, with only about 7 percent of the nation's resorts allowing snowboarding by 1985. By last year, 91 percent of ski areas a?owed snowboarding, according to the National Ski Areas Association.

In the 1995-96 season, snowboarders represented about 14 percent of all skier visits to U.S. ski areas. The rate of growth in the sport has been about 17 percent in each of the past four years, according to the association. The number of riders is expected to continue growing as older skiers, especially women, discover its relative

number of "tree skiing" trails for the second time this season, giving top skiers a chance to dodge trunks and branches as they race downhffl. "People love it because it allows them to explore," resort spokesperson Chris Goddard says.

Risk draws Miami lawyer Jack Shawde to extreme skiing in the wilds of British Columbia. The hassles of

the normal work-a-day world are easier to handle after a few days

of swooping into avalanche country, Shawde says. "It keeps it in perspective."

Snowshoeing. The * ski industry is updating a

centuries-old cold weather pursuit with

high-tech equipment The new

snowshoe * industry is

marketing shoes for such

activities as > ?* running, walking

ease.

Resorts, initially concerned about the safety of snowboarding, finally grew to accept the sport because of its revenue potential. "If s a huge profit center for the resorts," says Stacy Gardner, association

ed

spokesperson. Some

resorts,

especially those that market themselves to families, are even building "terrain parks" with machine-made snow jumps, h?ls and slopes for their rider guests.

Extreme skiing. These expert skiers skip established trails to make their own. Some carve out paths in remote areas at resorts. Others drop into untouched terrain, usually by helicopter, in search of the ultimate challenge.

A growing number of resorts are catering to extreme skiers, marketing their "trail-less" trails along with their beginner, intermediate and advanced slopes.

Killington (Vt) Resorts will offer a

and mountain ? *

climbing, pitching the sport as an ideal winter

aerobic exercise and one that entire families can participate in

together. Shaped skis. Fifty-five

percent of all ski shop orders this year were for shaped skis, according to Ski Industries America, a trade group for

manufacturers. Among the most popular are parabolic skis, shaped like the figure 8,

and fat skis with wider slats. The new shapes allow for better control,

especially when turning. Resorts across the country are adding classes for the shaped-ski crowd.

Ski jumps. The industry is watching Utah Winter Sports Park, near Park City, to gauge reaction to the nation's first recreational ski jump. The park built its 18-meter and 38-meter jumps in support of Salt Lake City's successful bid to host the 2002 Olympic Winter Games and opens

\ them to the public for the third year in a row this season.

Skiers interested in the latest ski trends?or novices

from how ski boots work to how to cross-country ski?can find help in Ski Industries America's Winter Active Sports Kit The free kit can be ordered by calling (703) 5064232.

ABA JOURNAL / DECEMBER 1996 87

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