THE ENTERTAINMENT LAWYER
IS WITH THE BAND
CHRISTIANE CARGILL KINNEY GETS CREATIVE WHILE HELPING THE CREATIVE
BY BETSY GRACA
THE ROBE
PRO BONO
KELLY CHANG RICKERT ON BEING
THE GIRL WHO’S BLINDFOLDED
WITH THE JUSTICE SCALES
BY ADRIENNE SCHOFHAUSER
“I tend to do better if I’m doing many,
many things,” says LeClairRyan partner
Christiane Cargill Kinney. “If I focus on just
one thing I might get bored, and I never
want my passion to get boring.”
Fat chance. Besides running her firm’s
entertainment department, Kinney is a
recording artist, founder of HeARTS Giving
Hope Foundation, mother of two young
children, and adventure sports enthusiast.
The diverse experiences tend to
complement one another. A long history
of musical performance—she began piano
lessons at age 3—helps Kinney in the
courtroom. “You have to adjust things
on stage as a musician,” she says. “[And]
you have to adjust while you’re in the
courtroom for unexpected changes, I would
say, almost all the time.”
Her music career, meanwhile, creates a
unique bond with her independent artist
clients. “I’ve found that [clients are] going
to Google their attorney, and, a lot of times,
my music stuff comes up before anything
else,” Kinney says. “That’s a big thing for
them. It’s just a comfort level of, ‘We’re on
the same page and I feel like you’re going
to take care of me.’”
Kinney, whose musical pursuits range
from classical to Celtic, plays solo gigs
and fronts the band Riddle the Sphinx,
which includes fellow attorney Burgundy
Morgan and percussionist Christo Pellani.
“Obviously all of our contracts are very
tight,” Kinney says. “We drive everybody
crazy. They’re like, ‘Oh, God, don’t mess
with them. They’ve got two entertainment
lawyers in the band.’”
It’s clear she loves the legal arena
as much as the stage. “It’s fun, it’s
entertainment, you never know what’s
gonna hit,” she says. “It’s fun to watch
people in the early beginnings of their
career: how you can help them to shape
and mold their career in a certain direction,
and just watch them grow as artists.”
She also knows it’s necessary. “A lot of
creative people,” she says, “the last thing
they want to think about, is, you know, any
of the legal or logistical elements of it.
They want to create and worry about that
other stuff later. But sometimes later is
too late.”
Just as she helps keep the creative
from being abused, she also helps the
abused get creative. In 2002, she and her
sister founded the HeARTS Giving Hope
Foundation and have since brought music
and art therapy to the lives of thousands
of abused or at-risk kids. “The whole
thing was really grounded in being able
to express yourself,” Kinney says. “If they
can’t do it verbally, then allow them to do it
through some creative outlet.”
Kinney and husband Sean, an
independent filmmaker, have two children
of their own: Ireland, 2, and Zaiden,
3. Sean is to blame for the adventure
sports, Kinney says. The couple has flown
helicopters, and tried hang gliding, indoor
skydiving and fire-walking. “There’s not
a Sean birthday that goes by that we’re
not signing a death waiver,” Kinney says,
laughing. “But I think it also helps me be
a better performer because … just that
adrenaline rush, that appreciation of life,
makes you more present on stage and in
anything that you do.”
Once a month, Kelly Chang Rickert
doesn’t need to plan her outfit. “I can wear
anything because the gown is over it,”
says the 35-year-old certified family law
specialist, who, 12 days a year, volunteers
as a temporary judge in the LA County
Superior Court.
She first learned of the position while
serving as a volunteer courthouse mediator
on family law cases—an extension of her
day job as a family law practitioner.
“In LA County, there’s a lot of need for
temporary judges because the judges that
are on the bench have four weeks’ vacation,
or they’re sick, and they have nobody to
cover their courtroom,” she says. “So they
look to the attorneys to volunteer to be
temporary judges to cover those days.”
Attorneys available to sit as temporary
judges are limited to those who have
practiced more than 10 years and are in
good standing. Recent budget cuts have
only increased the backlog of cases. “If that
courtroom is not covered, [cases are] put
on hold. It’s robbing people of their due
process,” she says.
She had to attend a couple days of
training for small claims court, where she
sits, as well as undergo a bench demeanor
and conduct course. “Basically,” she says,
“how to appear on the bench; how to be
unbiased; how to make rulings. What to
say; what not to say. For example, ‘visually
impaired’ instead of ‘blind.’ You can’t say
‘deaf.’ There has to be no appearance of
impropriety.”
Even with the training, Chang Rickert
says, there’s a mental transition from
