A Conversation With ... Kerry Douglas Sr.

You have practiced law for almost 41 years. What has changed, and what has stayed the same?
As with most business, the biggest change is technology. When I started practicing law in 1972, high-tech was an IBM self-correcting electric typewriter. It was high-tech because you could backspace. When I came out of law school, for research, you went to the books. Today, books are worthless. They still exist, we still have them in the office, but they are there for show.

The personal relationships are what has stayed the same. The practice of law is all about personal relationships because if a client does not have confidence in an attorney to make the appropriate decisions, then you are not going to get very far for very long.

What common legal mistake have you seen among business owners?
The biggest mistake I see is not spending a little money up front when it could save them a lot of money in the long run. Contracts are a good example. Many business owners don’t want to spend now to draw up a contract correctly, but instead they spend thousands of dollars to fix in the end.

What memorable cases stand out to you during the years?  
I was involved with Southwest Electric Cooperative when Walmart was changing to a supercenter and moving from the west end of (Bolivar) to the south end, where it is currently located. At that time, the property was outside of the city limits and within the service area of the co-op. However, the property was in the process of being annexed, putting it in the purview of Empire District Electric Co.

Walmart is obviously a very desirable customer for a utility. During the course of construction, we did certain things to maximize the probability we would be grandfathered at the time of the annexation.

Sure enough, Empire sued saying we had the right to provide temporary service at the time, since it was out of the city, but by the time it was complete, it was in the city and we didn’t have the authority to provide permanent service. We lost at the trial court level, went to the Missouri Court of Appeals and managed to get a favorable judgment. To this day, the co-op still serves Walmart.

How did you know your future was in law?
My dad, granddad, brother and two uncles are all lawyers, so whenever we all got together for holidays, nothing was ever discussed but the law. No one ever pressured me into law. It was something I had wanted to do since I was a little kid. I pursued my passion and my family was naturally very supportive of that.

What is the biggest lesson you have learned during the years?
I don’t know that I learned this lesson, but that what I did (during my career) reinforced the lesson that typical conduct, trustworthy conduct and skilled conduct are better advertising for a lawyer than thousands of dollars of any other kind of advertising. Word of mouth is a wonderful advertiser. If you do a good job for one client, that client will tell four or five of their friends and it’s a balloon. Our best source of new business is referrals of old clients. It all boils down to how you treat your clients.

What advice do you have for new lawyers just starting out?
I was on the Missouri Board of Law Examiners for just shy of 11 years. In addition to administering the bar exam, we were responsible for something called Character and Fitness. If someone applied for the bar, it was our responsibility to research his or her background. We checked into if they had alcohol problems, a history of mental illness, even things like if they had a history of domestic abuse, but one of the biggest was their ability to handle credit. Lawyers who can’t handle their own credit are more likely to be less than honest with their client’s funds. A lot of law students would incur thousands of dollars in student loans and credit card debit, and by the time they get out of law school they have bought a pretty sizeable house and don’t have a place to live yet, much less a job. When prospective law students come to me, I say, “Be very, very careful not to buy too big of a house [incur a lot of debt] until you know you can afford it.” Also, if they have the opportunity, they need to learn as many areas of the law as they can, get that practical experience before they zero in on a specialty. The better general understanding of the law you have, the better attorney you will be.