Of Counsel
The practice of law can be time-consuming, tedious, nerve-wracking and worse. The practice of law can also rock, especially when the wheels of justice turn as they should.
Law Rocks Global is a charitable organization that raises money by sponsoring a battle of the bands composed mostly of attorneys. My good friend and colleague, Craig Sims, asked me to join him in the competition that was held for the first time last year in Seattle.
I played the piano and many other instruments from grade school through college. I played the bass guitar in high school and college and dabbled in electric guitar. I was fortunate enough to purchase a vintage Gibson Les Paul guitar for next to nothing back in the 1970s. Until the pandemic it remained largely untouched in the original chipboard case that it was in when I purchased it. During the pandemic, I pulled it out, quite literally, from its perch underneath my couch.
I remembered just enough of the basic pentatonic or Blues scale to pick it up and make sounds that didn’t annoy me completely. I spent a lot of time just trying to get the basics of the electric guitar While we were all isolated due to the pandemic.
After a year or more of home practice, I got to play with other musicians for the very first time. Craig Sims invited me and two other busy professional musicians to get together and jam. All four of us seemed to gel immediately. I was so excited when Craig called me from his home after one of our two practice sessions to tell me how he admired my playing and had raved about it to his wife. Unfortunately, due to the busy schedules of all involved, we never got back together with the same group of musicians. A year or more passed and I continued to work on my guitar skills. I began to frequent open mic nights in and around Seattle and slowly began to acquire solid skills on the guitar. I was working on becoming a solid intermediate guitarist.
At the end of last summer, Craig called me and invited me to participate in The Law Rocks competition. He knew a talented keyboard player and vocalist who were enlisted. All of us were attorneys. He also invited 2 non-attorneys, another keyboard player and a bass player to join us.
Craig then rented rehearsal space for us to work on a short set list to play in the competition. We had five or six practice sessions in the weeks leading up to the November competition. I think we only were able to practice with all six members of the group together on only two occasions before the event. Craig actually determined the set list with some input from us and dubbed our band “The Funk Docket”. Craig was the funky drummer in the Funk Docket. I had played less than a half dozen informal gigs in high school and college and had only performed at open mics before the competition.
The competition was held at a well-known local venue called the Crocodile that has hosted all kinds of musicians in its long history. We arrived and received our talent credentials which allowed us to go back into the green rooms or dressing rooms available for the four bands that competed that night. The Crocodile probably holds several hundred people and has a state-of-the-art sound system and lighting system. It was truly the highlight of my musical career to perform on the stage that night with the Funk Docket.
I had just assumed that one of the four bands, at least, might not be great. I was wrong. All of the performances were exceptional and quite different. One band played classic rock tunes on acoustic guitars in outrageous outfits. Another band played 80’s rock tunes. The final band was be what I would describe as an alternative rock band. And they all rocked.
As I mentioned, Law Rocks is a charitable organization that raises money to support young musicians. Fundraising was really the focus of the event. Kudos to Craig, our other members and my friends and supporters because we were the top fundraisers amongst all four bands. We had the top level of sponsorship that added to the coffers of Law Rocks. The additional donations and ticket sales that we garnered went to a local charity supporting teachers and young students, the Academy for Creating Excellence. As a result, we won the two fundraising prize awards. While we didn’t win the musical prize award, it was clear that the crowd of several 100 people loved our show, and we got compliments from all of the other musicians involved. Our performance was professionally captured on video:
The musical experience and the performance itself was huge fun for me. The fact that we outraised all of the other bands made the event even more memorable. It was an unforgettable experience growing out of my practice of law and my love of music. It was a law-rocking night!