The other night I attended a Law Review dinner fundraiser for my alma mater. The Law Review Dinner is something I both enjoy and dread. Seeing some of my old professors, and meeting a new batch of bright young students, is enjoyable. The harrumphy speeches made from the podium are the part that I dread.
Typically, the main speaker is some somber dignatary who is accustomed to cloying reverence, or worse yet, is some cheerful seeker of higher political office. Because the point of the gathering is to honor the hard working academic elite (i.e. the law review editors and student-members) the speeches are filled with lofty statements about the noble purposes of the law and how to fortify one's resolve so as to accomplish the Olympian goals that all lawyers are presumed to be seeking. In other words, the speeches are usually really dull.
Not so with the most recent speech.
The speaker this year, Chris Rose, was witty and spontaneous. He engaged the audience. He explained the improbable turn of events that had led him to a point in life where people would consider asking him to speak before audiences filled with judges and respected lawyers. He even managed to use a few curse words, which came off well and did not seem like a ploy because he used them for emphasis the way people do in ordinary conversations.
He didn't speak much about the law, but he recognized that at such a noble gathering of lawyers and law students he had to say something about the legal system. So he said simply "I think it takes too long and costs too much." This is an important observation that is repeatedly made by non-lawyers, but one that lawyers, who obviously benefit from inefficiency, rarely make.
But, then, Chris Rose isn't a lawyer. He's a popular columnist for the local paper. His popularity, you won't be surprised to learn, stems from his outstanding writing talents and his keen observations about local culture.
Even though people were riveted by Mr. Rose's presentation, and laughed heartily throughout, there will undoubtedly be some persons of stature who will have been offended at his use of light profanity, or perhaps the dearth of legal subject matter. Arguments will be advanced that the point of the law review dinner speech, harrumph, should be to honor the fine scholarship and writing of our noble journal, and not to fill the room with light repartee.
Indeed. Scholarship and writing! Scholarship which mostly consists of finding a source to cite to for every proposition that is advanced (even points that scarcely need attribution), which teaches the students that originality should be avoided because it is impossible to footnote properly. And, of course, it stresses that writing should be mannered, and strict, and labored, and boring.
Oh, for God's sake, don't let these impressionable young minds see that writing is about engaging an audience and just talking openly with them as though you are having a dinner conversation. That is NOT the sort of thing that happens in scholarly writing. Really, how absurd!
I wonder, though, if it doesn't seem a little absurd to place so much emphasis on ceremonial homage to scholarly writing, and so little emphasis on improving the format or style of the writing. If few people read law reviews because they are too boring and lifeless then what's the point of publishing them?
There's something you'll never hear being debated from the wood-grained podium of a law review dinner ceremony. That would be more provocative than cursing.
