Legal News Photo by Cynthia Price
By Cynthia Price
Legal News
The difference between an acting career and a legal career for Miller Johnson member attorney Jon G. March was the dollar amount of a scholarship he did not receive.
Following participation in a high school drama institute at Northwestern University, March applied to the prestigious drama program at that school. To his great credit, he was accepted, but then money reared its ugly head and March went to the University of Michigan.
“My dad was a high school teacher in Ann Arbor, and the economics weren’t there,” March explains, “so with much regret, I lived at home and went to the University of Michigan. For whatever reason, I can’t really remember exactly why, I just sort of shut that door.”
Fortunately, he did not shut the door forever.
March excelled as a history major at U of M, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a James B. Angell Scholar. After graduating with high distinction, he went on to Harvard Law School, from which he graduated cum laude in 1969. (He also has completed the Harvard Law School Mediation Workshop, as well as other mediation training.)
Following that, he was an Air Force Staff Judge Advocate, and then went on to great success as a general civil litigator and now mediator and arbitrator. He said he enjoys mediation even though it can be frustrating; it has taught him new skills — “You have to be patient,” he says, “ which has not always been one of my strong points” — and reinforced the importance of others, such as intensive listening.
Along the way, March became involved with the Hillman Advocacy Program. Just called the Trial Advocacy Program when it started in 1981, the innovative training program has now taken the name of the prime mover behind its creation, U.S. District Court Judge Douglas W. Hillman. Hillman was inspired by the observation made by a U.S. Supreme Court task force led by Chief Justice Warren Burger which urged taking “positive steps to improve the quality of advocacy in the United States District Courts.”
This meshed with Hillman’s own ob-servations. March says, “Judge Hillman felt that there needed to be more emphasis on trial advocacy skills. In today’s world they devote more time to teaching that at the law schools, but 30 plus years ago there was not a lot of that. As an outstanding trial lawyer himself, Hillman saw a real need, and systematically set up this program.”
The opportunity to hone skills through Hillman Advocacy is offered to practicing lawyers at both beginning and advanced levels. One of the outstanding characteristics of the Hillman Advocacy Program, which has brought it national attention, is that it takes place in the actual federal courthouse. March says he finds it “extraordinary” that the court has enough commitment to the training that it shuts down for two-and-a-half days.
The powers that be at Hillman Advocacy apparently find March extraordinary in return, because they chose him this year as the third recipient of the Hillman Award, one among many awards and honors he has accrued over the years. Previous Hillman Advocacy winners were William Jack of Smith Haughey Rice and Roegge, and U.S. District Court Judge Robert Holmes Bell.
Comments Craig H. Lubben, chair of Miller Johnson’s litigation section, “Jon is very deserving of this recognition. He has served at every level of the program including as a member of the steering committee, program chair, faculty member, and as a witness. He has also delivered a ‘civility speech’ reminding bright young lawyers that the goal of a trial lawyer is to resolve disputes, and courtesy and civility are important components in achieving that goal. He is an ideal model of the trial lawyer that the Hillman Advocacy Program seeks to develop.”
March was involved virtually from the beginning, and became one of the core attorneys who developed it over the years into the outstanding program it now is. “I was asked to be on the faculty in the second year of its existence,” March says, “and I plan to continue to be on the steering committee.”
And, coming full circle, one of the ways in which March adds to the program is “playing” a witness as the carefully-orchestrated trial used at the center of the Hillman program unfolds. The curriculum centers around one case supplied by the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, which is modified as either a civil suit or a criminal case. In order to offer the learning participants a realistic experience, actors play the parts of key witnesses.
March is able to contribute expertise in this area due to a decision he made after his children got older, urged on by his wife: he would devote the time to pursuing acting in local productions.
He started his reinvigorated acting career by taking some classes through Grand Rapids Civic Theater. He relates a story about his first on-stage experience during those lessons, where he returned late from taking depositions to perform a “demonstration” scene from the play Amadeus where he took the role of Salieri. “I’m thinking, well, I’m used to talking in front of people, no big deal. So I get to the theater and I’m waiting for my turn, and I’m backstage absolutely terrified. I’m so nervous I literally don’t know if any sound is going to come out of my mouth.”
Sound did come out, and March was on his way. He says he experienced the same terror when he was cast in his first play, Other People’s Money, when he found out that its author, Jerry Sterner, was going to be in the audience as he started the play off with a lengthy monologue. March says that Sterner was complimentary, but, March says, “I don’t know if he meant it or not.”
That success led to many additional roles. He says his favorites have been the Stage Manager in Our Town, and of course the one for which he is best known, Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.
He has also played the Wizard of Oz twice.
One of those times was as part of a Christmas musical presentation by Civic Theater, which his out-of-town grandchildren (he has two sons, three grandsons and one granddaughter) attended at Thanksgiving amid great celebration, including wearing special T-shirts and getting a lot of attention based on their “bapper’s” performance. But, March says, “It was a great, happy time. Then that play went on for another four weeks, including twice on Saturdays. By the time it ends, you’re ready for it to be over.”
Despite the enormous time commitment, March refers to acting as “my golf game.” He says that what he enjoys most is the process. “In my litigation career, everything is adversarial; whatever I’m trying to do there are almost always very talented people trying to do exactly the opposite. At Civic Theater, I’m with people who don’t look like me, don’t do what I do, are often different in other ways. But there we are and we’re all working together for the purpose of making a great play, and it’s a very collegial atmosphere.”
Though some of the communications skills he uses in his litigation work — and teaches through Hillman Advocacy — are related to his on-stage presence, he sees a big difference between the two. “In the acting world you have a script and you have a defined character, you’re tied to those words, you’re tied to those emotions. In the trial world, you’re basically your own script writer.”
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