Lawyers find philharmonic convergence in music

LOS ANGELES | If a defense attorney, a prosecutor and a judge were to walk into a music hall, what would be the first thing they’d do?

“Spend a half-hour arguing legal motions,” veteran Los Angeles lawyer David Waller says one of his colleagues told him when he learned Mr. Waller would be toting his cello to a rehearsal of the fledgling Los Angeles Lawyers Philharmonic Orchestra.

But there was no time for that on this night.

The orchestra had just two hours to run through Johannes Brahms’ “Hungarian Dance No. 5,” Edvard Grieg’s “Triumphal March” and a rousing John Philip Sousa number, followed by two more classical and pops pieces.

In just a few days, the group’s 60-plus members would be decked out in black tie, playing their biggest gig to date — the grand opening of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s new downtown office. Not that anyone in the ensemble of brass, woodwind, string and percussion sections seemed to be showing any nervousness.

“We’re not just a bunch of lawyers playing music. We’re actually a good orchestra,” maestro Gary S. Greene, who organized the ensemble earlier this year, said confidently before putting his players through their paces.

Mr. Greene, a litigation attorney, didn’t threaten to sue anyone who intruded on anyone else’s solo. But he did bring his baton down quickly whenever musicians wandered off to the beat of their own drummer during the rehearsal at Wilshire United Methodist Church, a cavernous but acoustically stunning building in a particularly tony section of Los Angeles’ west side.

“Blend. Play softly. That’s where I want everybody soft so you can hear the trombone,” Mr. Greene implored as they struggled with a challenging selection from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The King and I.”

A few minutes later, one could hear the crash of a music stand as it vibrated off an elevated rehearsal stage and came smashing down on the brass section.

Superior Court Judge Brett Klein, the orchestra’s first trumpet player, refrained from holding anybody in contempt. The judge, who earlier this year oversaw a dispute pitting the estate of music superstar Michael Jackson against an auction house, was too busy concentrating on nailing his part in “Trumpet Fanfare.”

By showtime, he and other members of “L.A.’s only legal philharmonic orchestra” were ready for their appearance in the large lobby of the bar association building, opening with a melodic “Trumpet Voluntary” before moving on to uptempo favorites, such as Souza’s march, “The Washington Post.”

“I played in the UCLA Symphony Orchestra as a student,” said principal bass player Jack Lipton before the show. “It’s just wonderful to be playing in an orchestra again.”

The orchestra hit its stride this month at a Christmas-week holiday concert, in which it performed a mixture of classical and pops pieces. At the end of the two-hour performance hosted by actress June Lockhart, a longtime friend of Mr. Greene’s, the audience of more than 300 rose to give a standing ovation.

“The thing that’s so amazing to me is to see all these judges and all these lawyers who are such brilliant musicians,” said Miss Lockhart. “As children, they must have said, ‘Mommy, I want to play the violin.’ And Mommy must have said, ‘No, you’re going to go to law school, and then you can play the violin.’ ”

The group joins a handful of lawyer-driven orchestras around the country, including the Chicago Bar Association Symphony, where Judge Diane Wood, who was on a shortlist of candidates for the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year, heads the oboe section. Atlanta and Boston also have such orchestras.

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