A series of short comedy videos turning music lyrics into “legalese” is swelling the social media audience for McCune Law Group.
Each clip is about 20 seconds long.
Scott Romo, a multimedia specialist/content creator for the firm, made the first one early this year. In it, he approaches racial justice attorney Joe Richardson in the firm’s Ontario office and asks him how to say “Baka got a weird case. Why is he around?” in lawyer language.
The line, from Kendrick Lamar’s hit track Not Like Us, addresses Canadian musician Drake. Drake represents musician Travis “Baka Not Nice” Savoury, despite Savoury’s 2014 conviction of sex trafficking.
The response to the Legalese video was so big, in terms of boosted follower numbers, that Romo followed up with more. That post alone has 2.2 million views on TikTok , more than a million on Instagram and about a million on YouTube.
“It’s just gotta have that spark,” he said. “That first second is the most important thing. The initial energy has to be there and it ramps up from there.
“You need a lyric with a snarky undertone, insult and punch to it. Legalese is an inherently adversarial language.”
Tough Questions
Before Legalese, Romo was doing the Tough Questions series, in which he posed and answered legal hypotheticals, like “Do I get reimbursed if I’m the victim of a gift card hack?” “Can I sue my landlord for this?” and “How is boxing legal?”
This series changed his focus at the firm from multimedia specialist to content creation.
“I made a pilot for Tough Questions of my own volition and said, ‘What do you think of this?’” It answered the question, ‘Is it illegal to cuss out the police?’ “They said, ‘This is great. Give me more.’”
In these comedy/informational sketches, Romo plays all the characters, using costumes and props. He made the first Legalese, in part, to give himself a little break–he is not a character in Legalese.
Romo admits the Legalese posts are fun, with no direct legal substance, but there are still benefits.
“These show the lawyers in their office settings. Getting the faces of our lawyers out there is important,” he said. “And they grow the audience, so when we put out the word about a class action suit, we can reach more people who may have been harmed.”
Fish gotta swim
Romo says he can’t not do what he does.
He studied communications at California State University, San Bernardino, and spent as much time as he could in film courses.
“I was the worst student. I sat in classes and I would pay attention, but I would just see set-ups,” he said. ”I ruined the momentum of so many lectures.”
Sketch comedy was always his goal, he said, so he was skeptical about finding a good fit at a law firm.
“I was looking for a place to make comedy videos,” he said. “And I was like, a law firm? I’m not sure if I can bring much to the table for a law firm. I’m not very serious.”
But McCune Law Group had already taken steps to diversify their tone, in order to meet different clients where they were most comfortable. The firm had recently released a commercial to that end.
“That overdraft-fees golf commercial is what made me think I could work here,” Romo said. “I saw the big-effin’-banks video with the old lady getting hit in the head with a golf ball, and I thought, maybe this IS the place.”
In November Romo will have been with the firm for two years, doing what he loves to do.
“I’m here. Whatever you need, as long as I get to make funny videos.”
