Gronow, Jeremy --- "Improvising Lawyers" [1997] LawIJV 34; (1997) 71(2) The Law Institute Journal 16

• Improvising Lawyers

Improvising Lawyers

The working life of a musician is generally characterised by low pay, late hours, beer soaked workplaces, low job security, failing health and disorganisation. While many lawyers might argue they share similar conditions, few have seen them from the perspective of a working musician. Barrister and saxophone player Alister McNab, jazz drummer and country solicitor Chris Welsh, and blues pianist and barrister Ken Howden have all managed to maintain their early fascination with music throughout full-time legal careers. Each plays music at a professional level on a regular basis. One might believe that being a lawyer and a musician are mutually exclusive occupations. This was certainly my react-ion - I simply couldn't see how someone could find the time. As Ken Howden points out: "I think it would be very difficult for someone who was in a busy solicitor's practice to find time to rehearse or to play. If you're playing a gig, as I have, that starts at 10pm, you're not too flash the next day". Still, they all agree that time has never really been an issue with their two careers. Alister points out that he spends as much time playing music as some lawyers spend playing golf - it is simply a matter of what your priorities are. Certainly, leading this double life re-quires flexibility in both occupations and a degree of control over one's time that others might not enjoy. Occasionally concessions have to be made in favour of the law; none of them would play the night before important cases but this has not limited their musical careers. Ultimately they do it because they love it. While being a musician has its less glamorous moments, the rush of playing a good gig more than makes up for them. Chris Welsh talks about the sense of achievement and exhilaration he feels after pushing himself to play well at gigs. He also describes how funny some of the bad gigs can be: "I've done some dreadful jobs. When I was struggling to support myself on my rotten articled clerk's wage, we had this residency in a nightclub playing from 9pm till tam. Each night there would be this guest artist - a local baritone or soprano, sometimes a trick cyclist, other nights a guy who played the xylophone and whist-led at the same time, and every now and then there was a bloody country and west-ern singer." Ken sees music as using other faculties untouched by work. "As lawyers we are terribly analytical and music is not really like that. Particularly in litigation - you're looking for all those reasons why - why your side might be right and the other side might be wrong. It's a sort of heavy rational undertaking. Whereas music isn't - it's sort of 90 percent intuition and 10 percent left brain," he said. Alister McNab began playing saxophone and clarinet as a teenager, turning professional while at university in 1981. Initially he played in a number of rock and roll bands, but as his proficiency in-creased he moved over into the more demanding jazz scene with Ricky May's band. These days he plays in the backing bands of singers such as Bob Valentine and Tracy Kingman, performing in pubs and at the more lucrative corporate function gigs. He also plays in several jazz quartets around the traps. Music gives him a release from the pressures of law. He particularly enjoys the company of other musicians for their sense of humour and relaxed attitude. For Chris Welsh, music also began as a teenager when an old schoolmate played him a version of "Alexander's Ragtime Band" by the Dutch Swing College Band. Encouraged by his father, a Duke Ellington fan, Chris became a jazz aficionado. Later at boarding school in Albury he met other students with similar interests, and in spite of their lack of ability they formed a band. They devoured any jazz they could find on records or the radio, trying to copy what they heard. Sessions in a local brass band taught them the rudiments of music, while their piano player's habit of leaving the stage during gigs to dance with his girlfriend forced them to learn improvisation. After leaving school Chris remained in Albury, studying law and playing music to supplement his meagre income. The band would put on its own dances, charging admission and selling patrons Coca Cola which was then surreptitiously diluted with stronger spirits by the purchaser. Chris began a practice in Albury and despite a few extended breaks has continued performing in bands around north-ern Victoria. Barrister Ken Howden is a devotee of the New Orleans style of piano and a blues fan. He began learning piano as a child and played in rock bands at university, inspired by the work of Ray Manzarek of The Doors and Leon Russell of Joe Cocker's band. "Instead of all these guitar bands, you'd listen to these people that had the piano right at the centre of it and say `Hey, that's right! That's how it should be'," said Ken enthusiastically. When he became a solicitor he played solo gigs in piano bars but didn't enjoy it and gave live performance away for some time. A few years ago he began playing with blues duo Alex Burns and Nick Charles, going to the Edinburgh Festival with them in 1995. "Edinburgh was fun, but it's principally a comedy and theatre festival and it's huge. Your chances of being heard or seen there were slim. The average fringe audience dropped from 5 to 1.7 people," he said. One day the trio went to check the stage at a venue they were to perform at and inadvertently walked on during someone else's performance. Fortunately their presence doubled the number of people in the place and the incident was forgiven. Last year saw him playing and recording with Steve Boyd and the Preachers, a Celtic folk/rock band which performs around Melbourne, and playing on occasion with Alex and Nick. While Ken and Alister do not feel that being a musician has had any effect on their law careers and vice versa, Chris has found some crossover between the two. His long-term involvement in the jazz scene has led to him acquiring musicians and jazz fans as clients. "My reason for being there was to play and enjoy myself, but it's where I've picked up a lot of clients. For instance, next month I'm auctioning a farm for a saxophone player." The moral he drew from this success was that the conventional legal marketing wisdom of joining service clubs and organisations simply for the sake of networking is ridiculous: it is your sincerity that really impresses. "I remember reading about someone giving marketing advice to solicitors - go out and join a service club, do this, do that, get involved with the community to get contacts. To me that's stupid, because you go and join a service club and you meet life insurance agents trying to sell you policies, real estate agents trying to sell you land, all this sort of stuff . . . I say do what you want to do and you'll pick up clients anyway," he says laughing. 

JEREMY GRONOW