*A*
Literally Amazing

PROFILE

Amid the beaded earrings, used clothing and velvet paintings for sale

at the Dixieland Flea Market is the office of attorney Merrill Gordon.

ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM

Assistant Editor

ragging a box
filled with hun-
dreds of docu-
ments, an elderly
woman dropped
in one Sunday afternoon at
the law office of Merrill
Gordon.

She insisted she was due
property from her mother's
estate. She wanted him to
take her case, which she said
she'd been pursuing for more
than 20 years. She discussed
her situation for an hour and
a half.
Mr. Gordon listened polite-
ly, calmly. After all, he'd
heard plenty of unconven-
tional cases before. But then,
Mr. Gordon's law practice is
not exactly the norm.
On the weekends, Merrill
Gordon can be found at his
office at the Dixieland Flea
Market. Surrounded by
booths of rusted pots and
pans and antique clothing,
salesmen offering bubble
gum cards with pictures of
baseball stars, rows and
rows of gold chains and dis-
count perfume, records of
everyone from Pat Boone to
Judas Priest, homemade
crafts and handguns, is a
glass-front office resembling
a bar room window. From
here, Mr.- Gordon dispenses
his legal advice. Free.
It all began in the summer
of 1986, when Mr. Gordon
opened his own legal prac-
tice. A Michigan State Uni-
versity graduate who work-
ed as a page at the state
capitol and once ran unsuc-
cessfully for mayor of Hun-
tington Woods, Mr. Gordon
was attracted to law because

he believed it offered diverse
opportunities. It would not
get boring and he could help
people, he said.
For a time, Mr. Gordon
worked with a firm in
Detroit. Then he decided to
go out on his own, opening
an office at Ten Mile and
Woodward.
The clients came slowly
and steadily, but not as
quickly as Mr. Gordon would
have liked. So, realizing it
made little sense to "sit in
my office and wait for people
to come to me," he decided to
try his luck at Dixieland. It
was an easy drive from his
Woodward office — at Tele-
graph Road and Dixie
Highway outside Pontiac —
and would give him a chance
to meet with those who
might otherwise be hesitant
to seek the advice of a
lawyer, he said.
"Dixieland offers a real
Main Street setting," -he
said. "There, if you stand out
in front of your office, people
will stop by and ask ques-
tions. If you do the same
thing at a typical office
building in the suburbs, that
won't happen."
With a general practice
that includes many do-
mestic, personal injury and
real estate cases, Mr. Gordon
found Dixieland customers
were quick to stop in and
visit at his new office.
Many of those who come to
see him simply need to take
their cases to small claims
court, Mr. Gordon said. He
will walk them through the
procedure, advising them on

Merrill Gordon: "Dixieland
offers a real Main Street
setting."

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

69