Paddocks, Planes and the Funny Ways We Find Our Way Back
The road that leads people into law is rarely a straight one.
Sometimes it begins in a paddock during harvest. Sometimes in a council chamber trying to untangle legislation. And sometimes, unexpectedly, it leads back to a place connected to your family long before you ever realised it.
For Claire and Ellen, the two newest solicitors at Granleese & Co, their journeys into law have followed very different paths. Yet both have been shaped by the same things that shape many Riverina lives: family, community and a healthy dose of curiosity.
Claire: Where Farm Life Meets the Law
Claire in our West Wyalong Office - R. Bruce Bloore & Son
Claire’s days are still closely tied to farm life.
Alongside her legal work, she continues helping on the family farm, something she has been part of for most of her life. Some of her favourite memories of raising her children involve heading out to the paddock during sowing to have lunch with their dad while he worked on the tractor.
They would cook sausages over a small fire using an old plough disc. It was simple and practical, the sort of meal that tastes better simply because it’s eaten outdoors.
Not every moment was perfectly idyllic. Claire still remembers one of the children picking up a hot stick from the fire and learning a quick lesson about how long heat can linger.
Life around farming has always meant understanding that some seasons leave little room for routine.
“At harvest everyone is under pressure to get the crop in before the rain arrives,” Claire says. “If there’s a breakdown you might suddenly be sent off to collect a spare part, so you learn to be flexible.”
Her children grew up understanding that when things are busy, everyone pitches in.
“I think they realised Mum had to help because Dad couldn’t drive everything,” she laughs. “At harvest everyone is a labour unit.”
Even now, small sensory moments still stand out to her. One of her favourites is the smell of rain falling on freshly harvested stubble.
“It settles the dust and everything smells clean again, like the harvest has been washed away.”
A Degree That Started With One Subject
Claire did not grow up planning to become a lawyer.
After her children had left home she found herself with a little more time, though she was still balancing farm life and her role on Council. Wanting to better understand the legal framework behind her responsibilities as a Councillor, she enrolled in a Local Government Law subject through the University of New England.
That single subject quietly changed direction.
“To do the subject I had to enrol in a Bachelor of Laws,” she explains. “Once I started, I just kept following my nose through the rest of the subjects.”
Online study fitted around her life. Lectures were often played while driving between commitments, turning the car into a kind of mobile classroom.
She admits there were moments of doubt.
“I didn’t get the marks to study law straight out of school, so I always felt I had to work extra hard.”
But she soon realised something else: life experience helped. Years spent in farming communities and local government meant she was already used to asking questions and looking closely at how rules affect real people.
By the time she finished her final exam, the possibility of being a lawyer had quietly become reality.
The Human Side of the Law
One of the things Claire enjoys most about practising law is the human side of the work.
Legal problems rarely arrive neatly packaged. They are often tied to family situations, uncertainty about the future, or difficult life transitions.
“Sometimes people walk in the door feeling overwhelmed,” she says. “If you can help them understand their options and see a way forward, that’s very rewarding.”
Outside work, Claire enjoys cooking, gardening and reading. She used to knit jumpers for her children and has been thinking about taking it up again.
Home, she says, is simple: a warm fire in winter, family nearby and two miniature dachshunds firmly settled on her lap.
Ellen: Discovering a Connection to the Riverina
Ellen in our West Wyalong Office - R. Bruce Bloore & Son
Ellen’s move to Temora in 2024 felt at the time like the start of something entirely new.
She had relocated while finishing the final year of her law degree and was eager to begin her career in regional practice.
What she did not realise was that the Riverina had already been part of her family story for decades.
Her father completed high school in Wagga Wagga, and her grandfather worked as an agronomist, regularly travelling through West Wyalong and Temora for work.
It was only after she moved that those connections began to emerge in conversation.
During one chat, her grandfather mentioned something that immediately caught her attention. In 1984, he and Ellen’s father had helped fill in the Sebastopol Morningstar gold mine.
Today, Ellen drives past the site regularly on the road toward Junee and Wagga Wagga.
It is a small detail, but one that has made her realise how often life brings people back to places that were quietly part of their family history all along.
Finding a Place in Regional Practice
For Ellen, beginning her legal career in a regional firm has meant learning quickly and building strong connections with clients.
In smaller communities, legal work is rarely distant or abstract. The matters that come through the door often involve families, businesses and long-standing local relationships.
That closeness is one of the reasons she enjoys the work.
“You’re helping people through important moments in their lives,” she says. “It makes the work feel meaningful.”
Different Paths, Shared Values
Claire and Ellen arrived at the same profession by very different routes.
One began with farm life and local government. The other with a move to the region that unexpectedly connected her to family history.
But both have found that practising law in a regional community offers something distinctive: the chance to work closely with people and to be part of the place you serve.
And sometimes, as Ellen discovered, the places we arrive in turn out to have been part of our story all along.
