Come gather 'round people, wherever you roam, and admit that the waters around you have grown . . . For the times they are a-changin'
Yesterday begins like most Sundays for Kline. He peruses the newspapers and watches ABC-TV's "This Week with Christiane Amanpour," while cupping a mug of hot tea. But on this sunny morning, he sequesters himself at his dining table and pores over caselaw that references Dylan lyrics.
Kline is preparing for a Dylan-and-the-law seminar that he's hosting Friday with his playwright son, Zac, at the Wilma Theater. He excitedly pages through a stack of legal opinions, separated by black binder clips.
"Every one of these cases, from Massachusetts to California, cite 'Subterranean Homesick Blues,' " he says.
"Is that the name of a song?" asks a visitor - a reporter - who knows nothing about Dylan.
"Yes. Where the hell have you been? It's scary," Kline laughs. " 'Get sick, get well, hang around the inkwell . . . You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.' "
Kline, of Kline & Specter, talks about how lawyers, particularly trial lawyers, need to stay "fresh and vital and relevant and creative," and must be good storytellers. Like Dylan.
"In his songs, Dylan raises questions about accountability and social responsibility, which are themes and concepts and ideas that I live and work with in my professional life every day."
Kline, among the nation's top trial lawyers, is perhaps best-known for winning a $51 million jury award against SEPTA on behalf of a North Philly boy whose foot was torn off on a subway escalator.
"Every case has a potential to do a larger public good," Kline says. "I don't see the justice system in the harsh terms that Dylan as a writer in the 1960s saw the justice system."
The system, like human beings, has its frailties and imperfections, but judges are largely fair and just, and juries are "effective equalizers," he says.
Kline recalls a case he tried a few years back on behalf of a dialysis patient who suffered massive brain damage and "a horrible death" as a result of a medical error. In his closing argument, he quoted the Dylan song "Dignity."
"Dignity was the first to leave," he recites.
- Wendy Ruderman
