Law: Trust me, I'm a poet

Oscar Wilde would have made a terrible lawyer. In spite of his rhetorical skills, his reputation for excess and high living would have been incompatible with the concerns of a solicitor's everyday existence. But appearances can be deceptive, and for many lawyers there is reason in rhyme.

Adam Taylor was prepared for several reactions when he started writing comic poetry about everything from the psychology of wildebeests to hotels in Bournemouth. But when he found himself performing at the prestigious Ledbury Poetry Festival this month in a line-up that included the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, the response that surprised him most was the assumption that he would now have to quit the law. "People didn't see the two occupations as being compatible," he explains. "They couldn't imagine someone who got up and recited poetry wanting to carry on working at a law firm."

Taylor's experiences hit at the heart of a common perception that lawyers and artists don't belong to the same breed. Imagine, say, Byron submitting his CV to a law firm, and you begin to get the picture. The poet's reputation for radicalism and loose-living would have caused too many judges' wigs to stand on end in horror for him to succeed - let alone his incestuous relationship with his half-sister, Augusta; his decision to keep a bear as a pet; and his peculiar fondness for wearing Albanian national costume.

In many ways Byron could be seen as the perfect antithesis to the lawyer. That, at any rate, is the stereotype. And an initial attempt to hunt down other solicitors who break the mould seemed to prove that law firms are unwilling to challenge perceptions about lawyers' anti-poetic tendencies.

At some firms they laughed; at others they questioned the appropriateness of asking their solicitors whether they nurtured poetic urges; and the few that went ahead and made enquiries, drew a blank. However, Taylor, an intellectual property lawyer at the London law firm Withers, firmly believes that the disciplines of his job tie in directly with the skills he needs to write poetry.

His main argument rests on the emphasis both lawyers and poets place on language. He feels, for example, that the precision he has to use when selecting words for legal documents lends itself to the conciseness of expression that characterises his poetry. "Like most litigators," he says, "I have had the experience of my letters to the opposition being minutely analysed in court by judges and barristers. As a result I choose my words carefully, and don't say anything unless it is absolutely necessary. I find it's exactly the same with poetry."

Taylor's conversion to poetry came two years ago when he heard John Hegley performing, and his understated tone and deadpan comedy comes directly from the tradition of stand-up comic poets. Despite his emphasis on the precision that his words must embody, much of his humour is also derived from double meanings which bring the poems alive, but would cause havoc in legal documents.

Anthony Julius, who is a pioneering force in the drive to bring the combined study of law and literature to Britain from the US, agrees that wordplay creates an essential difference between legal and poetic texts, saying: "Poetry cleaves to ambiguity, whereas law shrinks from it." He continues: "Legal prose is considered to be very pedestrian. There is an almost Marx Brothers' style of comedy to its pedantry."

It is notable that while other law firms remain detached from the issue, the firm where Julius himself now works as a consultant, and was formerly a senior partner, actively promotes poetry among its employees.

Mishcon de Reya's decision to take Lavinia Greenlaw on as poet-in-residence is now infamous in the legal world, and, even though her year of residence is up, her influence on several of the lawyers remains strong. Karen Sanig attended many of her workshops, and has had one of the poems she wrote there broadcast on Radio 4. Sanig argues that Greenlaw tapped into a creativity that can also contribute to being a good lawyer. "You often have to think laterally to address problems within cases," she says. "It may sound like an oxymoron to say lawyers are creative, but there are several elements to the job that need a flexible frame of mind."

Proof that lawyers are more bound up with poetry than their image suggests can be also found on the Internet. If you go to the Poem Finder website and enter "lawyer" into the slot asking for the poet's profession, more than 2,000 poems shoot up onto the screen on subjects ranging from "Advice to a Young Friend Who Should Like To Be A Lawyer" by John Godfrey Saxe, to "An Appeal to Cats in the Business of Love" by Thomas Flatman.

However, there is also evidence that serious poets have found that the practice of law comes into conflict with their vocation. Ovid excelled in Roman law, but rejected it, and went on to write the outrageous Ars Amatoria, for which he was exiled from Rome.

A clue as to why the concept of the lawyer-poet seems initially so laughable can be found in John Godfrey Saxe's poem, "Advice to a Young Friend". The poem advises the young man not to waste his time with the legal profession, warning: "Although the law of literature/May your attention draw/I'm very sure you wouldn't like/The Literature of Law!"

The obvious difference between the two is the perceived cold rationality of law, as opposed to the imaginative freefall intrinsic to most literature. However, Julius points out that while law "makes a fetish of rationality - it is not purely rational. Law itself comes from very emotional sources. And the whole notion of the trial, in which the aim is to ensure that the innocent are acquitted and the guilty are committed, is also deeply emotional."

An alternative line of enquiry could be pursued by looking away from the text, and examining the very different images of the lawyer and the poet. Take Baudelaire, who compares himself to an albatross, soaring magnificently through the sky as a poet, but clumsy and awkward in the company of men. Baudelaire is typical of many poets, in that he emphasises his solitude, consciously standing outside society, and celebrating the private moment.

It is also telling that Sanig points out that when Lavinia Greenlaw held her master-classes, it "broke down departmental and hierarchical barriers". Poetry encourages its readers momentarily to forget the constraints of society. If it is fair to say that poets often stand outside society, it is equally fair to say that lawyers are its bedrock. Though both may deal with matters of love, death, politics, and human dispute, while the former emphasise our individuality, the latter remind us that we are public citizens in a democracy.

However, it is inescapable that both are obsessed with language, both are intrigued by conformity, and both dance along the boundaries between emotions and rationality. Far from being amusingly separate, they are simply different sides of a madly spinning coin.

`ITEM 3' BY ADAM TAYLOR

Mrs Bolam

Stirred her tea

And raised a point

Of order re

The official view

Of the parish

Vis-a-vis

EMU

Mrs Sperring

Supposed

That someone should tell

Valerie Harris

In the post office

About getting hold

Of some Euros

Mr Rathbone

Made a plea

For a policy

Of wait and see

The Chair agreed

And asked the hon sec (me)

To notify

The government

And Valerie

Accordingly