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Elaine Harris, who practices law (particularly tax law) in her home office at 701 Keeler Ave. in Spur, lived and worked in the Dallas–Fort Worth area most of her life but discovered Spur in 2017 while looking for a more affordable alternative for her family.
“At the same time,” Harris says, “I was looking for a small town where I could semi-retire while still practicing law. I was familiar with West Texas from the years I spent in Lubbock attending law school at Texas Tech. I decided that Spur was a good fit for all of us. I feel very fortunate that I can live here without working too hard and be close to my kids.”
Harris has been practicing law in Texas for 35 years—since 1986 when she graduated from Texas Tech School of Law. For most of that time, she worked as a tax lawyer in Dallas, first for Jones Day as a tax associate and later as a senior attorney for the IRS.
“Now I represent taxpayers in controversies with the IRS,” explains Harris, “but my practice here also includes a variety of civil transactions and litigation—estate planning, business organization, contracts, probate and real estate.” She doesn’t handle criminal cases.
Under the trade name “Spur Law,” Harris has recently started a separate business offering online and local tax preparation services called “Spur Tax.”
By far the most requested services in the Spur area, Harris says, are estate and incapacity planning. She provides sophisticated planning using family partnerships and testamentary trusts with federal tax and Medicaid aspects, as well as basic planning with wills, powers of attorney, and directives to physicians in case of terminal illness. For indigent residents, she provides simple wills and incapacity planning without charge.
Harris, who undertook an extensive renovation of her two-story home and office at East Hill Street and Keeler, has persuaded the next generations of the merits of Spur as well
“I have three wonderful grown kids,” Harris says. Her oldest son, Henry, and his wife, Kate, of Fort Collins, Colorado, are expecting their first baby in June, and they are now in the process of buying a house here in Spur.
Her middle son and daughter-in-law, Greg and Samantha Hardin, and their three-year-old daughter, Alice, are already well known to locals. Living only a block from Elaine, Greg does handyman and residential construction work, and Sam stays home and attends college online working toward a teaching degree.
“They appreciate the advantages of the small-town life in Spur, compared to life in the city where they both worked full time, commuted, and lived in an apartment,” Elaine says.
Daughter Rebecca is the youngest; she is living in Viet Nam teaching English. Her mother is looking forward to her coming back to the U.S. this spring.
We asked Elaine one other important question in this interview: What do you see as needs for Spur’s business climate to grow, and for the area to attract more residents and professionals?
And we liked the good sense of her answer. “If we have more residents, local business will follow,” Harris says. “I think the internet will make small-town living increasingly feasible and attractive because now we have entertainment, services, health care, and even jobs online. That’s why Cap Rock’s internet service is so crucial to our growth. Spur will be more attractive to these potential residents with improvements in infrastructure—utilities, roads, trash, etc.—these are the things we can’t get on the internet.”
Get in touch with Elaine Harris by phone at (806) 686-6804, fax (844) 329-6625, text (806) 686-6861 or email (attorney@spurlaw.com). Find her online at www.spurlaw.com. Appointments are available 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m Monday through Friday and 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday.
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