Lucas Foust:
This is Lucas Foust from Foust Law office. And I'm lucky enough to be here with Grant Dickson of The Silverman law firm, who is our lawyer of the month, this month. Grant, hey, how are you?
Grant Dickson:
I'm doing great. Thank you for having me.
Lucas Foust:
Hey, you betcha. Congratulations. We feature one attorney every month and this month it is you. Tell us a little bit about yourself, like where you're from, where you grew up, that kind of stuff, Grant.
Grant Dickson:
Absolutely. So I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. I actually grew up in a little town called Franklin, which is just outside of Nashville. It's more or less a suburb of Nashville now. And I moved to Montana about eight years ago. And my practice areas here at the Silverman Law Office include corporate transactional work, real estate and liquor and gaming.
Lucas Foust:
Those three areas are keeping you busy, I suspect. Tell us a little bit about where you went to school, that type of stuff, how you landed in Bozeman. Tell us how you your journey took you from music city to here.
Grant Dickson:
Gosh, how long have you got?
Lucas Foust:
Fire away.
Grant Dickson:
Well, so I went to Vanderbilt University for law school.
Lucas Foust:
You were a Commodore, nice.
Grant Dickson:
That's right. That's right. And then I bounced back and forth between Nashville and Washington, DC. I worked for a large firm Latham and Watkins in Washington, DC, and my practice areas there primarily focused on energy transactional and regulatory work. I did a lot of work in the renewable energy space and also regulated utilities and then I moved back to Nashville and went to work for a smaller firm there called Sherrard & Roe. They've since added a few folks to the mass head since I left, but that was the name of it when I was there. And my practice there was a little bit broader, so I focused mostly on corporate transactional work, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital financing, that kind of thing.
Lucas Foust:
That's a long way from Tennessee to Montana. How'd you bridge that gap? What brought you here?
Grant Dickson:
Well, the fishing mostly. So I made the mistake of starting to come out here to fish on vacations around 2011, and after about three years or so of doing that, I finally decided being happy one week a year wasn't good enough anymore. And so in 2014, I went to the legal seminar, the Ski & CLE up at Big Sky Resort and then just decided that's it, I'm moving. And so that was Martin Luther King weekend, January 2014 and I moved out in June.
Lucas Foust:
So the pushing eight years now, it sounds like right?
Grant Dickson:
Yes, sir.
Lucas Foust:
Well, good enough. So I ask this question of everybody during voir dire jury selection, I ask this all the time in focus groups, and I'll ask this of you, setting your faith and your family aside, now those are two very important things and I don't want to minimize them, but if I ask this question, everybody would say faith in family, right? So we'll set those aside. Okay. Here's my question. What's the passion in your life Grant? What gets you up in the morning? What would you do if you could do nothing else?
Grant Dickson:
Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, if I could do nothing else, it would be fly fishing. I mean, that is definitely my passion, my hobby. That's what got me out here and it's one of my still favorite thing to do. I still have to pinch myself when I get to take a Saturday and go float down the Yellowstone. I mean, that I used to spend all this time and effort to come out here on vacation to do that and so, I really like that. And then in my professional life, it's really helping folks get where they want to go. You know, I really like, especially a lot of our new clients, helping them start up their business and get rolling and get them set up and doing what they want to do.
Lucas Foust:
What do you think those two passions say about you Grant? What does it say about you that you like to fly fish? You like being outdoors and you like helping people get where they need to be?
Grant Dickson:
Well, I think it's says that I'm somebody who likes to help. I think what it says is that just like the rest of the folks here in our office, it's never about me. You know, we see the practice of law as helping the clients achieve their goals. And so, whatever I can do to do that, that's what it takes.
Lucas Foust:
Going from the "me" to the "we", making it not about yourself, it's about this community, making it a better place to live. And what do you like most about living in Bozeman? I suspect that your home town getting gobbled up by a Metro area, it's probably changed a little bit. What do you see here that you like, that you appreciate versus back home?
Grant Dickson:
Yeah, no. So everything I love to do is here, whether it's fishing or skiing or hiking, or with my dog. And it's just a really exciting time to be here in Bozeman right now. I mean, like where I grew up, the Bozeman area continues to blow up and expand and there's just tremendous opportunities here for folks moving here and for folks that are already here with businesses. And I mean, we're just busier than ever with corporate transactional work and real estate work, and the liquor and gaming too, which is a little bit of both. I mean, every liquor and gaming deal I do is a corporate deal and a real estate deal too.
Lucas Foust:
There's always some trade-off though, tell us one thing you miss about Nashville, just one thing that you miss back home? If I could bring it back here, I'd do it in a heartbeat. What one thing do you miss?
Grant Dickson:
That's an easy one. The barbecue. So I'm a pretty tough critic when it comes to barbecue and there's a couple of places back home in Nashville, if I could just transport them out here, then I'd be happy as a hog.
Lucas Foust:
Hey, I'll give you inside scoop, The Roadhouse near Big Sky. Hit it one of these days, it is worth it. They got smoke billowing out there, 24/7 it seems like, but that's my place to go. It will make you feel like you are at home, but a little chillier probably, right?
Grant Dickson:
I agree, those guys definitely know what they're doing out there.
Lucas Foust:
Well, good, good. Tell me a little bit about how'd you pick your specialty? You kind of talked about transactional work, liquor and gaming, highly regulated industries, how'd you land in those types of specialty that area?
Grant Dickson:
Yeah, no, that's a great question. So, I think part of it is just a little bit of a personality fit. You know, I'm not really a litigator. I've done some litigation work in the past, in Nashville and here in Montana, but I really prefer the transactional side of things. I mean, I love working with clients to get deals done and just sort of the excitement of that process and getting folks where they like to go. And so, I think that's sort of how I wound up on that side of the fence in the legal world, and then the liquor and gaming, the highly regulated industry, that just sort of flowed naturally from my experience on the energy side of things, that's a highly regulated industry as well. And so there's an awful lot of parallels in how the legal system treats those industries, and so that's been a good fit for me too.
Lucas Foust:
So you've also mentioned a little bit about liquor and gaming, and then the other thing too, is that the marijuana business has kind of taken off here. And is that the type of work... That's a heavily regulated industry? Is that the type of work you all take on as well?
Grant Dickson:
Absolutely. And I think people will be looking to us for help once all that kind of really gets rolling at the beginning of the year, because it's going to be run through the department of revenue, just like the liquor and gaming work. And so we have a tremendous amount of expertise on that side of things between Joel and Brenda Faure, in our office, who's been a liquor and gaming paralegal for gosh, 20 years. And so we've got a good team that's ready for that stuff when it gets going.
Lucas Foust:
So Grant, if I'm sending folks your direction, what can they expect when they call your office? And then give us some good contact information, like how do they get ahold of you?
Grant Dickson:
Absolutely. So the easiest way to get ahold of us is just to call our Bozeman office, that phone number is (406) 582-8822. And it's very likely that you'll speak with Becky who is our receptionist downstairs, and she'll get you set up with a consultation. And that's a process we have here at our firm to figure out if we're the right fit for our clients. And it's an hour long process, and we generally ask people to bring their documents with them if they'd like us to take a look at those during that, and we'll have that meeting and if it sounds like we're a good fit and we'll get set up and get rolling.
Lucas Foust:
That's great. Hey, listen, that's all I got for you for today. Thank you so much for your time and congratulations with being our attorney of the month and Grant, good luck with you. Good luck fishing, hope it keeps along, sounds great.
Grant Dickson:
Absolutely. Thank you, Lucas.
Lucas Foust:
You betcha.