On Saturday night at the Variety Playhouse in Little 5, The Atlanta Bar Foundation presented LawJam 2012, the third annual battle of the Atlanta Lawyer Bands.
You may not know this, this might strike you as absolutely unfathomable, but attorneys are frequently talented at far more than just the lawyering job they do. Many attorneys are masters in the genre of music, expressing their passion in melody, harmony and rhythm.
Saturday night saw nine attorney bands performing onstage to a packed audience of rowdy fans clamouring for great music. The nine bands did not disappoint.
A band complete with a brass section called Class Action staffed with partners from Smith, Gambrell and Russell brought Chicago back to life with their excellent renditions of 25 or 6 to 4 and Saturday In the Park.
A band named Signal Flow with lead singer/guitarist Van Anderson from Alston and Bird enchanted everyone with its amazing jazz instrumentals. You might want to watch for this band’s CD’s.
But it was a band named Specific Deviations which brought down the house and won the coveted award of Best Lawyer Band. Prominently playing drums in this outstanding collection of attorneys was our own Jeremy Abernathy who rocked the house with his classic rock beats.
Specific Deviations is named for an aspect of child support calculations. As you might guess then, Specific Deviations is peopled by family lawyers. In addition to Jeremy the band includes, in part, Hannibal Heredia of Hedgepeth and Heredia and Steve Steele and Vic Valmus of Moore, Ingram, all of them excellent family law attorneys as well as master musicians. Vic, formerly guitarist for 38 Special, pushed the audience over the edge as he swayed through the throngs with his wicked wireless guitar churning out hot lick after hot lick. This band had moxie. This band brought it. This band completely owned the night. You would expect nothing less from a group of excellent family law trial attorneys.
So a shout out tonight to our own inimitable attorney, Jeremy Abernathy. Congratulations for bringing home the gold. And thank you for the fantastic work you do both onstage and in the court room. I’m honored to have the privilege to work with you.
Michael Manely