Like me, many of you may have recently received a copy of the DVD entitled "Revitalizing the Lawyer-Poet: What Lawyers Can Learn from Rock and Roll." The DVD is based on the scholarship of Fordham Law Professor Russell Pearce, and he appears as narrator throughout the DVD. The Widener Law Journal published a footnoted version of the text of the DVD last year, which is available on SSRN. I am a big admirer of Pearce’s scholarship, even though I disagree with many, if not most of his conclusions. It is provocative, in the best sense that academic scholarship should be, and the DVD represents an innovative, accessible, and fun way of bringing the important issues Pearce addresses to law students and lawyers. If you don’t have a copy of the DVD you can obtain one by e-mailing [email protected], with a cc to [email protected], while supplies last. Show it to your students (as I did earlier this week), use it in MCLE programs, and watch the fireworks fly.
The DVD essentially does two things. First, it lays out Pearce’s diagnosis and prescription regarding the “crisis of professionalism" currently afflicting lawyers. Second, it contends that rock ‘n roll music can show lawyers the way (does anyone remember Peter Frampton?) out of the current crisis.
The starting point for the DVD’s first task is Pearce’s 1995 article (70 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1229) in which he applies Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm theory to legal ethics, to argue that as a descriptive matter, the “professional paradigm” for legal ethics is being replaced by a “business paradigm” and that as a normative matter this is a good thing. I briefly discuss some of my disagreements with Pearce’s article in a forthcoming West Virginia Law Review essay, which I will post on SSRN when the proofs are avaialbe. For those who want to engage this discussion more deeply, I recommend Jeffrey Stempel’s 1999 critique of Pearce’s article (27 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 25), and Pearce’s subsequent articles in which he defends and refines his views.
What is new in the DVD is Pearce's turn to rock and roll music as a potential beacon for lawyers. While I again applaud Pearce for thinking outside the box (a phrase he uses in the DVD), I believe he both misunderstands the music and misapplies its teachings for lawyers in significant respects. (Disclosure - while I clearly owe some deference to Pearce due to his accomplishments in the legal ethics field, I am willing to concede no ground in terms of my self-proclaimed accomplishments as an amatuer rock musicologist.) I had hoped to provide some explanation as to why here, but I fear I've already pushed the boundaries of appropriate blog length. Thus, as my colleague Marjorie Cohn, a prolific editorialist, might say - "I feel a review essay coming on." Stay tuned. In the meantime, check out the DVD.
Steve Berenson