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By the Juris Education Interview Team
Daniel Dykes is the Historian of the Harvard Law School Parody and Drama Society Alumni Network (HLS PADSAN).
Laughter is all about release and a feeling of safety. In ancient times, our ancestors often faced life-threatening situations: is there a bear hiding in the bushes? When we find out there’s no bear, just the wind, we laugh in relief. That buildup of tension and release is the essence of humor — a potentially confounding or dangerous situation that resolves in an unexpected and non-threatening way. Law school being a high-pressure environment, as you point out, the need for humor there is acute. Laughing about our stress can put it all in perspective and help us feel that we can handle it. At Harvard Law School, for more than sixty years students have dealt with their stress by writing and performing each year a full-length musical poking fun at the school, the professors, current events, the legal profession, and themselves. In its current form, we call it the Parody, and it has high production values, professional lighting, singing, dancing, a live band, and a cast and crew of about 70 people, all just for the fun and joy of the experience.
The positive impact on a current law student who participates in the HLS Parody is direct and obvious: laughter, positive campus recognition, building something challenging and rewarding with others, and establishing friendships that often turn out to be lifelong (I myself flew all the way across the country to attend the wedding of someone I met in the Parody). As for life after graduation, some Parody alumni have gone on to careers in entertainment law, and some have even had careers on Broadway or in Hollywood as actors or writers, but more often they stay involved in amateur theater. I know several alumni who perform in theater groups specifically organized by lawyers, often as charitable fundraisers, and many more who are involved in local theater, dance, or music outside of the legal profession. One judge on the federal bench still sings a law-related song from his law school show at formal dinners!
Many, perhaps most, Harvard Law students who were involved in the Drama Society and its annual musical Parody say that their time working on the show was their happiest time in law school. When you’re in a play, you depend on everyone else in the cast and crew to all do their jobs at exactly the right moment to make the show the funniest and best it can be. This fosters strong bonds between everyone involved. When the show ends, the friendship bonds often endure for the rest of your life. I often interview alumni from as far back as the 1960s who are still regularly in touch with their friends from the Drama Society of that era. The Drama Society’s Parody is also one of the best places to make friends with someone outside your own class year and for JD students to make friends with foreign LLM students (and vice versa). Finally, as the largest student-run event on campus, the show also creates community beyond its direct participants. Laughing at yourselves, at your school, and at your professors makes you let your guard down and helps you feel closer to people who may otherwise seem unapproachable. Professors often play themselves in self-deprecating cameos, which lets everyone in on the joke and builds camaraderie.
Absolutely. We learn best when we are playing, which is why children play so much. Studies have shown that dopamine and endorphins produced by fun experiences increase learning and retention. You can only make a clever joke about a legal topic, as we so often do in the Parody, if you understand the topic well, and joking about it is a way to make it your own. Humor is also an effective way to make a legal argument in court, to speak truth to power — and to undermine authoritarian regimes, as political scientist Gene Sharp’s research made clear. A recent New York Times op-ed by Harvard alumnus Nicholas Kristof puts it this way: “Humor puts autocrats in a difficult position. They look ridiculous if they crack down on jokes but look weak if they ignore them.” So humor can be an effective way not only to practice law but also to protect (or build) the rule of law itself — without which, the law is a mere extension of the will of the ruler, and there can be no true legal profession.
Harvard Law School’s enduring Parody tradition proves that artistic endeavors go hand-in-hand with the law at its highest levels. At HLS, professors and administrators embrace the Parody and get in on the fun. When Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan was the Dean of HLS, she did a cameo in the show, and other deans and professors do the same every year. It takes endurance and dedication to be in the show and study the law at the same time, but it’s well worth it—you’re creating beloved memories that will last for the rest of your life. When I was choosing which law school I would attend, the existence of the Parody was a big part of convincing me to choose Harvard, and I have always been glad that I made that choice. Finding like-minded people that share your love of creativity can make the difference between an alienating law school experience and an empowering one. You will never regret finding your people.
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