Fast 15: Matt Fryar
by January 1, 2013 12:00 am 138 views
Matt Fryar can relate to lawyer-turned-author John Grisham’s description of law school as “the great American babysitter for directionless postgrads.”
Unsure what to do with the degree in agricultural communications he earned from the University of Arkansas in 2006, Fryar enrolled in its School of Law. There he found his niche.
“Once I got into law school, I loved the academic exercise of it, the strain, the pressure, the competition,” he said. “I just fell in love with the practice of law. It’s doing something different every day. I may deal with a school administrator one day, a banker the next day and a farmer the day after that. There’s yet to be a day in 3 ½ years of practice that I haven’t learned something.”
He started clerking for Cypert Crouch in 2008 as a third-year student. They told him there’d be a spot for him after graduation if he passed the bar. He did, and has worked there ever since.
He said the highlight of his career so far isn’t any one particular event. Rather, “it’s being able to look back on myself 3 1/2 years ago,” Fryar said. “Then I was a law grad. I had a degree and a license. Now I’m a lawyer. I don’t know when that happened, but I now consider myself to be more than just a law grad.”
His five-year goal is to become a partner at the firm.
A member of Springdale Rotary, he also volunteers with the Washington County Teen Court, a diversionary program similar to drug court. He’s on
the executive council of the Arkansas Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Section, which he’d like to be chairman of someday.
He’s a “huge” supporter of the Springdale School District, where his wife teaches fifth grade. He occasionally guest-teaches her class, and doesn’t rule out a run for school board down the road.
And of course, “I’m a Razorback fan,” he said.
“Other than that, it’s work and family, family and work,” said the dad of Katie, 3 ½, and Anna, 2. “Instead of working my kids around my professional life, I make a conscious decision to work my professional life around my kids.”