By Brian S. Brijbag, Esq.
I’ve stood in courtrooms, neck deep in depositions, cross-examinations, and medical exhibits — building arguments on logic, precedent, and pain.
And I’ve also stood on stage in a community theater, wearing eyeliner and shouting about cursed pies and funeral rehearsals for divine absences.
This used to confuse people.
Honestly, it used to confuse me.
How could I be both a trial attorney — armed with statute, evidence, and strategy — and also a playwright, performer, and theatrical nerd who gets emotional about lighting cues and Beckett?
Shouldn’t I pick a lane?
Turns out… no.
Because contradiction, I’ve found, isn’t something to resolve.
It’s something to praise.
⚖️🎭 The Lawyer and the Stage Kid
In law school, I worked full-time during the day and studied law at night — often while memorizing monologues on my lunch break or scribbling stage notes in the margins of civil procedure outlines. I’ve cross-examined medical experts in court and also directed a one-act where a gnome was subpoenaed.
It wasn’t a double life. It was one life, densely packed and a little offbeat. And it still is.
- I love the rigor of the law: the clarity of arguments, the stakes, the discipline.
- I love the wildness of the theatre: the metaphors, the mess, the raw language of being alive.
And the thing is — they feed each other.
Theater has made me a better lawyer.
Law has made me a more dangerous playwright.
🎭 What the Stage Taught Me About Trial
- Timing is everything. Deliver an objection too early or too late, and the whole rhythm is off — just like a missed comedic beat.
- The jury is your audience. They’re reading you, not just your words. They feel truth faster than they analyze it.
- Clarity matters more than complexity. You can have the most brilliant argument in the world — if they don’t understand it, you lose.
- Presence is persuasion. Whether you’re onstage or on record, people respond to presence. It’s not about perfection. It’s about showing up fully.
Trial is theater — high-stakes, unscripted, terrifying theater.
You don’t fake anything. But you do craft everything.
⚖️ What the Law Taught Me About the Stage
- Every character has an agenda. Just like witnesses, people don’t say what they mean — they say what they need.
- Details build credibility. Whether you’re constructing a timeline for a judge or a backstory for a scene, the specifics are what sell it.
- Cross-examination is dialogue. It’s not about “gotchas.” It’s about rhythm. Set up, build tension, twist, release.
- The stakes are always life or death — even if it’s over pie.
I’ve learned that a monologue can land like a closing argument. And a well-delivered closing can break a room the same way a final scene does.
🤝 Contradiction Isn’t a Flaw. It’s a Feature.
We’re told we should be one thing. Lawyer or artist. Logical or creative.
But the truth is: contradiction is where humanity lives.
Some of the best lawyers I know are poets.
Some of the most powerful stories I’ve written started with a legal question.
I don’t write plays in spite of being a lawyer.
I write them because I’m a lawyer — because I spend my days surrounded by people in crisis, caught in systems that don’t speak their language, holding stories they don’t know how to tell.
So I tell them.
Sometimes through filings.
Sometimes through scripts.
Sometimes through both.
💬 If You’re a Contradiction, You’re in Good Company
Maybe you’re a scientist who writes love songs.
Maybe you’re a therapist who does stand-up.
Maybe you’re a CPA with a closet full of puppets and a dream of writing operas.
Good.
The world needs structured chaos, wild discipline, and people who refuse to be just one thing.
You don’t have to reconcile it.
You just have to own it.
Final Thought: The Gavel and the Spotlight
Some days I wear a suit.
Some days I wear stage makeup.
Some days I forget which is which.
But I’ve found purpose in both — because both are about seeing people clearly, telling stories truthfully, and crafting moments that matter.
So yes — I’m a trial lawyer.
Yes — I’m a theatrical nerd.
Yes — I’m a contradiction.
And I’m proud of it.
Brian Brijbag 