Australia is a land of wild extremes. Diverse communities stretch along its eastern seaboard and up into the heat of the north, following the winds that sweep through the Nullarbor and back down to the Great Australian Bight.

There is a landscape to suit every lifestyle – and for lawyers, there is also plenty of work if they find the right opportunities.

For so many lawyers, mapping out a professional identity goes hand in hand with finding a place to belong. This sense of place is tied up with their locale just as much as with a workplace.

While far-flung countries possess a certain exotic allure, a number of lawyers find home inland, opting out of major cities and replacing overseas adventure with the exploration of their own backyard.

Setting a course for a career out of town

One young Brisbane lawyer began his career with his sights set on the regional horizon, and has now hit his stride servicing personal injury matters throughout the Top End.

Matthew Littlejohn joined Maurice Blackburn four years ago, working as a research paralegal on the Queensland floods class action. Admitted to practice in 2015, the 27-year-old now leads the firm’s regional office in Darwin, which he helped to establish.

“It’s a very unique jurisdiction to work in – in terms of clients, in terms of the general vibe of work. It’s very small, so it’s collegiate. Everyone knows everyone and you build close relationships quite quickly,” Mr Littlejohn says.

The Queenslander found his passion for regional practice in 2013, as an associate working for NT Supreme Court Justice Judith Kelly SC. Observing advocates accustomed to Darwin’s sweltering climes, with their shirt-sleeves rolled up to their elbows, and seeing court proceedings progress with the cultural needs of Indigenous clients in mind, were eyeopening experiences.

“I got a real insight into the way culture was very important in the practice of law, and also into the way the legal profession up here has kind of adapted to that,” he says.

“For instance, explaining that your client has ‘gone walkabout’ or was doing ‘ceremony’ or ‘men’s business’, and wasn’t available on those dates – everybody just knew and understood what that meant and accepted it. It was valued and accommodated by the justice system.”

Home is where the heart is

Regional lawyer Debbie Langton is also rather taken with her home, in the coastal region of Illawarra in NSW. She is the director of Carter Ferguson Solicitors, which was established in the beach town of Gerringong in 1979.

“I particularly love the South Coast because you’ve got the mountains meeting with the sea and it’s a really beautiful part of the world; lots of lovely rural landscape and also a lot of interesting and diverse people that live down there. It’s a pretty beautiful part of the world,” Ms Langton says.

The local lawyer has enjoyed a truly enduring relationship with her business, which now employs 25 people across five offices.

She undertook work experience at the law firm with founders Timothy Carter and Lloyd Ferguson, as a student attending Kiama High School. Some years later, it is not uncommon for Ms Langton to receive a pot of organic honey or home-grown fruit from clients of the firm that she now owns.

“In rural and regional areas you’ve got a lot more families, mums and dads and older people who actually need you to help them, which makes you feel a lot more rewarded in what you do. People tend to like having a cup of tea and talking about what we need to do,” Ms Langton says.

In her view, successful regional lawyers commit to belonging to their communities. Not only because referrals are driven by customer loyalty, but because doing so is professionally rewarding. Carter Ferguson’s personal, client-focused ethos underscores what Ms Langton describes as the “lounge-room lawyer” approach.

She credits a winning combination of satisfied customers and investment in good staff with the firm’s expansion from one office to five in the last year. Her lawyers, located in Wollongong, Kiama, Gerringong and Nowra, and inland in Goulburn, have had the opportunity to drive the firm’s presence along the NSW South Coast.

“Our growth was really about the people that came into the team and the ideas that they had. It was guided by what the team saw as opportunity, and also client demand. We were getting busier and busier, basically through referrals,” Ms Langton says.

Opportunities embedded in the community

Victorian practitioner Dan Simmonds, from specialist business law firm Harwood Andrews, agrees that lawyers who do well in regional practice start by committing to their communities. He believes a good career in regional Australia is fuelled by locals’ desire to support and be serviced by a member of their own community.

“There is good business, and people living in the regional communities that would prefer to use local service providers. What we try to do is position ourselves as being the people who can provide that excellent service that otherwise they’d need to go to capital cities to get,” Mr Simmonds says.

Although lawyers born and bred in regional towns may experience a more seamless transition when moving to a practice beyond the city limits, outsiders who opt into regional life may well uncover a spirit they would otherwise never have known. Mr Simmonds believes taking the risk is worth it, and insists that while regional towns are tight-knit, they are not closed.

“You can actually get involved in the community – it is easy to become ingrained and establish yourself,” he says.

“It always helps if you have a history of being raised in [that] region, because you know the place, you know the people. However, in Geelong there is that community that you can get to know and understand relatively quickly.”

Maurice Blackburn’s Mr Littlejohn is a prime example of a big-city lawyer who has established himself as a local. After his associateship he returned to Brisbane, but kept an ear to the ground for opportunities that might take him back north. The possibility of returning came just five months after he finished his trainee program, when Maurice Blackburn asked him to help expand its presence into the territory.

“In terms of career progression, it’s going to take us a while to get up and running in the territory and well-established, and I’m very much looking forward to being a part of that process. And I think as long as that challenge and opportunity is still around, then I will be as well,” he says.

The young lawyer keeps a busy schedule, managing an eight-person office and travelling to meet clients between Darwin and Alice Springs. His team is planning to reach people in more remote locations, such as Tennant Creek, Katherine and the Tiwi Islands.

The challenge of setting up an office in a new jurisdiction has not fazed Mr Littlejohn, even though he has had to learn fast.

“It’s still such early days. It feels like we’ve been here forever but there’s still so much to do,” he says.