I just received the following news item from Lawrence Savell which I am delighted to post. It adds a dimension to the blog which we can all appreciate. If any of you would like to send me either news items or longer articles I will be happy to consider them for posting.
…now to the featured item!
Dear Mr. Badertscher: First, thank you for your excellent law blog. Second, I thought your readers might enjoy a lighter news item, and I am therefore also writing to request that you please consider mentioning the release of my indie music label LawTunes’ (www.LawTunes.comhttp://www.lawtunes.com) latest humorous lawyer-created, law-related album, “The Lawtunes: Live At Blackacre.”
Compared to our three prior efforts, “Merry Lexmas From The Lawtunes,” “Legal Holidaze,” and “The Lawyer’s Holiday Humor Album,” the new CD, “The Lawtunes: Live At Blackacre,” is a broader take on the law, lawyers, and legal practice through ten original rock-and-roll tunes in an album not limited by content or style to any particular season. It even includes a few “love songs,” although expressed in the language of an attorney. Premised as a “live” concert at “Blackacre,” the legendary parcel of land so often referenced in eternally-painful law school examination questions and scholarly legal treatises/articles, the new album includes:
1. “(She’s An) Electronic Discovery”: There’s probably no “hotter” topic in the law today than the review and production in litigation of e-mail and other electronic documents. But that context and its developing terminology (including data accessibility, preservation, spoliation, retention policies, metadata, embedded images, the recent Federal Rules of Civil Procedure amendments, and the leading Zubulake line of cases) are appropriated with gusto to tell the tale of a lawyer falling in virtual love.
2. “Lawyers’ Blood Is Typo”: A lawyer is called upon after-hours (assuming there is such a thing anymore) to provide guidance to a “client” seeking a reliable life partner, and explains why he is qualified to do so.
3. “Della Street”: A tribute to the most famous of legal secretaries, in a style appropriate to when “Perry Mason” first aired.
4. “LawMan”: A hard-pounding and blunt explanation of exactly what it is that lawyers do.
5. “Orderin’ In”: The pleasures of working late and eating at your desk. To the extent there are any, this song extols them.
6. “Cadillac Cab”: The big-city law firm/corporate perk with double-edges, as detailed herein.
7. “Little Bluebook”: A lawyer frustrated in love desperately seeks guidance from the legal citation style manual, invoking a generous helping of the jargon of that treatise.
8. “Livin’ Life In Six Minutes”: A new acoustic version of a popular Lawtunes song lamenting the reduction of legal practice (and life) to billing increments of tenths of an hour.
9. “Everywhere There Is A Client”: As close to an anthem for lawyers as there is, explaining some of why lawyers do what they do.
10. “Santa’s G.C.”: Well, old habits die hard. The album concludes with this whimsical tale about a lawyer who goes in-house to become General Counsel at Santa, Inc.
As composed, recorded, and produced by this practicing litigation attorney, the songs incorporate a broad spectrum of popular/classic rock-and-roll styles. Like its predecessors, the CD is available at www.LawTunes.com, either solo or all four in partnership as the “LawTunes Jury Boxed Set.”
LawTunes’ efforts are dedicated to the proposition that lawyers’ zealous representation of clients and furtherance of the public good can be only enhanced by a healthy willingness of lawyers to poke fun at themselves appropriately on occasion. They contribute to the effort to make people think a little differently about lawyers, and show that attorneys are not necessarily humorless, boring, or incapable of self-deprecation (success on at least the last item is guaranteed).
Further information, cover scans, and song clips are available at www.LawTunes.com. I very much appreciate your consideration. Thank you.
Lawrence Savell
LawTunes
savell@lawtunes.com
(212) 408-5343