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| In the finale, "Von Trapp" exhorted the audience of attorneys to lift their voices to the strain of "Legal Vice," and to Marshall's pleasure, they did. |
"Legal
Vice, Legal Vice
Slimy schemes are permitted
Pay our fee, You will be
Certain to be acquitted!"
No, this isn't a number from The Capitol Steps or a Mad Magazine feature.
This is part of the new continuing legal education seminar, The Sound
of Ethics, in which attorneys are challenged with ethical dilemmas
presented in song.
The off-beat three hour program, developed for the District of Columbia Bar by ProEthics, Ltd., had its world premiere at the 2002 Judicial and Bar Conference in Washington DC on the evening of April 18. It is the creation of ProEthics president Jack Marshall, a Harvard and Georgetown educated attorney who combined his backgrounds in law, ethics, and theater to come up with this first-of-its-kind presentation.
"The biggest challenge in teaching legal ethics is to engage participants and keep them thinking," says Marshall, who is a frequent CLE instructor for state and local bar associations nationwide. "Legal ethics seminars have a well-earned reputation for being deadly boring, because so many instructors just discuss the Rules of Professional Conduct. I've found that the best antidote to that approach is humor and interesting formats. A legal ethics musical was the logical next step."
Marshall has had previous success stretching the genre of legal ethics seminars. He has received excellent participant response to programs like The Ballad of Halibut Klutz, a multi-episode ethics saga-in-verse that involves different issues and plot twists depending on the votes of seminar participants, and The Ethical Perils of Pauline McQueen, in which the spirit of Clarence Darrow helps a deceased attorney escape "Lawyer Hell."
"When I proposed staging a musical seminar, Lalla (DC Bar CLE Director Lalla Shiskevish) jumped at it. Then the only problem was writing it, and packing ethics problems and humor into song lyrics," Marshall recalls.
Fortunately, Marshall is unusually well qualified for the assignment. In addition to his legal background and a decade of teaching legal ethics at bar associations, government agencies and law firms across the country, he is also an award winning professional stage director and the Artistic Director of Arlington, Virginia's American Century Theater, a non-profit professional company dedicated to producing neglected American plays and musicals. Marshall has written, performed and staged legal parodies since 1978, and in the 80s operated a legal and political satire group, the Music Lobby, whose audiences included the entire U.S. Supreme Court. For The Sound of Ethics, Marshall recruited three professional musical theater performers from the DC area, Brian Childers, Susan Grogan (a singing attorney), and Richard Rohan.
The Sound of Ethics traces the career of an ethically sensitive junior partner, Maria Nonplust, at the law firm Snapp, Clapp, and Von Trapp. There she encounters ethical dilemmas that span the fields of wills and estates, real estate transactions, negotiation, corporate representation and litigation, often in opposition to her hard driving senior partner, Otto Von Trapp. The show's seven songs, all parodies of familiar Rodgers and Hammerstein tunes, include the poignant duet "People Will Say We Screwed Up", the stirring Enron-inspired dance number "Shall We Squeal?," and the hymn to fee-padding, "My Big Bill." In the finale, "Von Trapp", played by Rohan, exhorted the audience of attorneys to lift their voices to the strain of "Legal Vice," and to Marshall's pleasure, they did.
Interspersed among the musical scenes was Marshall's often provocative commentary, which ignited lively debate among participants regarding the best approaches to the dilemmas presented. Despite all the music and humor, he regards the issues explored in The Sound of Ethics as serious business. "The program is designed to get attorneys to think about right and wrong, rather than merely compliance with Bar rules", he says. "I've been talking about this distinction for years, but the Enron mess has made it much easier to grasp: when the focus is just on avoiding sanctions, unethical conduct becomes almost inevitable. The seminar is about how to serve your clients without losing your soul, and hurting people unnecessarily. The music and the jokes make it go down easier, but this is a program that should make attorneys evaluate their role in society, and as human beings."
Other Continuing Legal Education organizations were watching the premiere of the first musical legal ethics seminar to see how it was received, and were impressed, while the lawyers in attendance left glowing evaluations. Is Marshall ready for a sequel?
"You bet!" he says. "In fact, I've got a legal ethics version of The Music Man, called The Ethics Man, all sketched out."
"Are you ready to hear a lawyer ask how he ought to respond to the news that his services were used to help an unscrupulous client secure 'Seventy-Six Bum Loans?'"
For more information on this program, read the latest press release: