Taking the reins

By Maria Kantzavelos

While some lawyers will hit the links to blow off steam after a long day at the office, or they’ll turn a golf course outing into an opportunity to connect with clients, Yvonne C. Ocrant makes it her practice to saddle up for some quality time with a trusty companion.

A horse enthusiast since she was bitten by the ”horse-love bug” as a 7-year-old, when she first took to the back of a Thoroughbred, Ocrant, a transaction and litigation attorney, makes the commute after almost every workday from the Chicago office of Hinshaw & Culbertson, to a barn in Elgin.

There, the law firm partner leaves her briefcase behind and picks up her bridle.

”My opinion has always been, it’s cheaper than therapy,” Ocrant said recently from outside the stables where she had finished bathing 11-year-old Otis, one of her horses, and where four-year-old Sam, her other Thoroughbred chomped on hay.

”When work gets stressful or a case just wears me down, there’s nothing like coming out to the barn and petting your horse,” Ocrant said. ”Even if I don’t ride — just coming out here, smelling the horses, petting them, even if I’m cleaning something — just being here calms my nerves.

”Whether horses know it or not, they do that to us. They call it a ‘kind eye.’ You look at a horse’s eye — it’s a soothing sense.”

For Ocrant, an avid equestrian who competes in eventing, which includes the three disciplines of dressage, cross-country, and stadium jumping — horseback riding is an outlet like no other.

”People say, ‘Why don’t you just take up a sport or go running to burn off stress?’ If I have quiet time, I’m still running stresses through my head. I can’t let it go. Yoga and running — it just doesn’t clear my head,” Ocrant said. ”But when you’re on a 1,500-pound animal with a brain of its own, you’d better be focused on that horse. I can’t be thinking about work, and the stresses just naturally fall off because I’m focused on him.”

Ocrant’s time with her horses is not only a stress release. Nor is it her hobby, she said.

”A hobby to me is, you can do it one day and then decide not to do it — you put the tennis racket or the golf clubs back in the closet. You don’t have to feed it, it doesn’t need to be warmed-up, it never gets hurt, you can always replace it,” Ocrant said. ”With the horses, you have to dedicate your time, your money, your blood, your sweat to making it safe and fun for you and your horse.

”I know I get a little crazy about it, but it’s a passion.”

At 34, Ocrant has converted that passion into a unique law practice that has taken off in recent years, since she carved out her own niche in the area of equine law.

As Hinshaw’s only equine lawyer — and one of the few lawyers in Illinois who identify themselves as such — Ocrant’s clients include horse owners, breeders, boarding facilities, trainers, farriers, veterinarians, hooved-animal humane societies, non-profit therapeutic riding centers, and agricultural business insurance providers.

As a litigator of equine cases, she deals with such legal issues as personal injury, property damage, breach of contract, and fraud.

Her transaction work in the area includes drafting agreements for equine purchases, sales, and leases, as well as boarding contracts, and trainer commission agreements. She also creates equine activity liability releases and disclaimers for boarding and training facilities, trainers, and other entities associated with activities involving horses.

Ocrant — who also practices in the areas of employment law and title insurance law — joined Hinshaw in 1999, after graduating from DePaul University College of Law.

In 2001 she began to carve out her niche in equine law, which has grown into a lucrative area that makes up about 40 percent of her overall law practice, she said.

”Without it, I’d be looking for more employment-related work or title insurance work,” Ocrant said. ”It’s significant enough now that I would have a big void in my practice if I didn’t have it.

”The equine industry is a $9 billion industry. When you think about an attorney trying to find a niche, well, a $9 billion industry is a pretty good market,” Ocrant said. ”As it turns out, I’ve got enough business in Illinois, but I am licensed in Wisconsin and in the federal courts of Indiana.

”And with Hinshaw having 25 offices, I can represent clients crossing state lines anywhere. Illinois has plenty of equine work, but to have the flexibility to practice in other states is a selling point for me.”

Building momentum

Ocrant acknowledged that her idea to start a Chicago-based practice with horses as its focal point was met with some skepticism when she first mentioned it to her senior colleagues at the firm.

”They had no idea what it meant,” she said. ”They thought I was playing with horses again — that’s about all they understood.”

Nevertheless, Ocrant said, ”they respected the fact that I was trying to start something new. Whether it took off or not, that was my problem. But they were willing to give me a chance.”

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