Creativity and Professionalism
with Justine Rogers
image by Field
words by KaldorTom here, one half of Laws of Creativity. I first met Justine Rogers a few weeks before her photoshoot for this project. She was interviewing me as part of research she was doing on law and innovation. So I suppose you could say our first meeting was in a professional capacity. But that expression wouldn’t do justice to her way of operating. Sure, she was “professional” in all of the positive senses of that word – on time, well prepared, the right equipment; but none of the bad ones – she was comfortable, collaborative and, more than a few times, comedic.
At the photoshoot, Laws of Creativity met the same version of Justine Rogers, even if this meeting was in a personal capacity. Speaking with Rogers, you soon realise that, for her, there is no meaningful distinction between the personal and the professional. She seems to be simply herself in both capacities – and to great effect.
To represent her creativity, Rogers had brought along a recording device with a built-in microphone at one end. Rogers uses the device for the observational research that is core to her work as an academic. But she also uses it for a podcast she’s making about artificial intelligence and ethics. Like Rogers, the device sits as comfortably in the professional world as in the personal world – and like Rogers, the device demonstrates that creativity exists equally in both.
In this spirit, Rogers believes that “most lawyers have some sort of creative desire or pursuit”. She’s in a strong position to comment: her doctoral research at Oxford examined how elite barristers in London “balance their own humanity” with their professional selves.
When it comes to her humanity, Rogers’ main creative outlet has long been stand-up comedy. She was one third of “Aggressively Helpful” (along with Alex Wasiel and Alice Fraser), a trio that had a run of success at Australian comedy festivals (she performed solo festival shows too). She also founded and hosted a pop academic night in Sydney. At one point, Rogers was performing or consuming comedy at 3 or 4 events each week.
These days, there is less space in her life for comedy. For Rogers in her personal capacity, the main reason is being a mother. She points out that there are few examples of “women in stand-up who have children and are still working”.
But for Rogers in her professional capacity, there is another force that shrinks the space for comedy. As Rogers puts it: “it can be hard to maintain your identity as a comedian, while also getting legitimacy as a legal academic”. Two types of experiences stand out for her. The first is arriving at a meeting with colleagues and encountering the familiar demand: “tell us a joke”. It’s hard to play a credible role once you’ve started reading the lines of the jester. The other experience is the subtle feeling of colleagues closing themselves off, suspicious that Rogers might turn them into material for her next gig.
The pressure on young academics intensifies the need to be “professional”. Rogers explains:
Like any other professional services job, academia has been subject to the same forces of commercialisation, corporatism and performance review. The pressures and expectations on academics are huge. It’s not just Socratic discussion and a few drinks after – that just doesn’t happen anymore.
Speaking with Rogers, you soon realise that, for her, there is no meaningful distinction between the personal and the professional. She is simply herself in both capacities – and to great effect.
This analysis is a twist on the cliché of the struggling artist reaching maturity by giving up a ‘frivolous creative pursuit’ and taking on a ‘real job’. Maybe there’s actually plenty of room for both, but the world of the ‘real job’ can’t entertain the ongoing existence of another identity – and so stamps out even the smallest gestures of the creative self?
To be fair, Rogers doesn’t opt for small gestures in the balancing act of being an academic and a comedian. She doesn’t cultivate her creative self privately, far away from anywhere it could impact on her professional world. She prefers a full frontal crashing of these two identities (because, after all, they’re both the same, right?). She infamously invited a decorated visiting colleague – a “pearl-wearing academic from the North-East corner of the US” – to one of her stand-up gigs. The event was poorly organised and even more poorly attended. The guest sat in the middle of the front row, projecting a disappointed glare and no laughter.
Rogers also unleashed her satire on TED, one of the world’s most well-known professional networks. In her presentation, she offered a six-point formula for a successful TED Talk – which included advice like “start with a personal anecdote from your childhood that has no connection to your topic”. The presentation was effectively an open critique of TED, its viewers and the hundreds of illustrious speakers that have contributed to the format. But, through this brazen mixing of the personal with the professional, Rogers comfortably won over the large live audience (and the more than 30,000 viewers who have watched her talk online).
Rogers fully understands what’s at stake with stunts like the extra-curricular tour for the visiting academic and the TED Talk. “You lose some things for sure – some things, they’d just go: ‘No, Justine’s not right for that.’” But she also recognises how her comedy has led to opportunities at work. And if you’re someone like Rogers who can use your personal creativity to support your professional success, you can understand why you’d choose to just be yourself.
Dr Justine Rogers is a Senior Lecturer at UNSW Law. She is Deputy Director of the Law Society of NSW Future of Law and Innovation in the Profession research stream and a board member of the Australian Pro Bono Centre. She also teaches courses on legal ethics and legal philosophy.