MOSES LAKE — There were things about the practice of law that Brian Dano liked, and things he didn’t, he said. But overall it was a great career.

“I have enjoyed it. I think I’m probably one of the few people that get up every day and can’t wait to get to work,” he said. “I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed coming to the office and doing what I do.”

But after 51 years, Dano said it’s time to step back, and he’s retiring from his own practice. He will continue to do some work for a fellow lawyer. 

Dano said he went to work with his father Harrison Dano straight out of law school in his dad’s practice in Ellensburg. He has been practicing law in Moses Lake since 1984.

“I only focus on estate planning, probates, entity creation and management and real estate and commercial transactions,” he said.

Those were the areas of practice that really attracted him, he said, something he learned after he’d been in the field for a while.

“My dad was a lawyer, and I just joined his practice,” he said. “I started practicing, and I wouldn’t say the first seven or eight years were a lot of fun. I kind of did everything like every young lawyer should do — in court, landlord-tenant stuff, just everything they make young lawyers do. So I wasn’t too enamored with it. Finally in about 1981, I think it was, I quit going to court.”

That was the turning point, he said. Once he stopped going to court and gained more experience in transactional law, as it’s called, he really liked law.

“And actually, I kind of hate to quit. I could probably do this until I die and have a great time doing it,” Dano said.

But there are other considerations, among them spending time with his wife Cynthia and his children. In addition, estate planning and probate work drove home some lessons.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat across the table from people who had big plans when they retired, and one of them is dying. Or died,” he said.

Those clients worked hard and looked forward to new experiences, but never got to enjoy them, he said. 

“And knowing that longevity is very uncertain, this is a good time to slow down,” he said.

Dano said he didn’t intend to practice law at all, back when he was preparing to attend Washington State University. His dad never suggested he or his brother Garth Dano should consider law careers. 

“I was always going to be a coach,” Dano said. “I wanted to be a football coach. But I kind of changed my mind at the last minute when I was at WSU, changed my major out of the physical education department into the political science department,” he said. 

He attended law school at Gonzaga University and started practicing law in 1972.

Litigation wasn’t that attractive to him, he said, because by nature it’s pretty adversarial. 

“Your client comes to you, probably doesn’t want to, but has to. And then you’ve got the party on the other side, and their lawyer. So you start off with somebody you didn’t even know. You started off kind of in a friendly relationship with them. By the time the litigation is over, you’ve got three new enemies, your client, the other side and his lawyer. And I never liked that; I really disliked that,” he said.

In contrast, the parties who come to him in this transactional law practice want his help solving a challenge.

“The clients that come to see you, come to see you because they want to, not because they have to,” he said. 

“A lot of times they know they need to do something,” Dano added. “But they don’t quite know how to do it, or what direction they should take. So that’s my primary function, is to help lead them in the right direction.”

Dano said a lot of his business is what’s called family succession planning, where families are trying to ensure a smooth transition from one generation of a family to the next. In Grant County a lot of those clients are farm families, he said.

“And there are always difficulties when you have kids that don’t participate (in the business),” he said. “How do you make things equal? Again, that’s part of what I try to help people resolve.”

Disputes come up even in transactional law, he said, but there’s a mechanism for that.

“I’ve kept my practice free of disputes. In other words, if people wanted to argue in the course of a probate, then I would just refer the client to somebody else,” he said. “So that’s why I’ve enjoyed my practice, I’ve stayed pretty much free of disputes.”

He does have some retirement plans.

“My wife and I both like to travel,” he said. “We’ve done a lot already, but we’ll try to do a lot more.”

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached via email at [email protected].