Vermont Bar Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 Vermont Bar Journal, Summer 2019 | Page 8

PURSUITS OF HAPPINESS
Improv-able Duo
Jennifer Emens-Butler: I am here in Burl-
ington, and I have the pleasure of interview-
ing two people at the same time about a cer-
tain passion that both Rick Hecht and Neil
Groberg have. As our readers know Pursuits
of Happiness is our column where I interview
lawyers who have interests and talents out-
side the law, which are sometimes tangen-
tial to their practices and sometimes are just
something entirely different altogether. How
long have you two known each other?
Rick Hecht: So, I think we first met at a
Chittenden County mediation group, that
Neil and some other folks were trying to start
up as a mediator support group. I then found
myself going to a meeting that Emily Gould
had called for the DR Section and somehow
as a result of that meeting I became assistant
chair of that Section.
JEB: Ah, so this is all Emily Gould’s fault!
She set up her co-chair before she left. Well
done Emily!
Neil Groberg: I remember us meeting be-
fore that.
RH: Before my “power?” [laughs]
NG: I remember the mediation folks try-
ing to help plan mediation week at Citizen’s
Cider and I think that was the first time I met
Rick, and we were brainstorming at the time.
JEB: Wait, you were planning the media-
tion week at Citizen’s Cider, or the mediation
week was going to be at Citizen’s Cider?!
NG: Ha, well it should have been! But no,
we were brainstorming what to do for medi-
ation week over cider, and I think Rick came
up with the suggestion of doing something
with what was then under construction, the
Vermont Comedy Club.
RH: Yes, the Comedy Club at that time
was just starting up with Nathan Harwick and
Natalie Miller. It was in infancy, but I had tak-
en a standup class from Nathan and I knew
that they also did improv.
JEB: You were already interested in im-
prov?
RH: Right. I came to improv when I was a
first-year law student. When I was In Boston
they had this sort of continuing education
thing that had all sorts of classes -- anything
from knitting to astrology -- and one of the
classes was improv comedy and I thought,
that’s what I need!
JEB: Needed?
RH: Yeah. It really was, like this is the op-
posite of drilling stuff into my head at law
school and being more free flowing.
8
JEB: Ok.
RH: And so it sort of happened, and then
fast forward however many years, I found
that improv is good, I’ve seen it help me
with the law, and I think there is even more
tie-in with mediation (where things come at
you from out of left field) so Neil and I and a
couple of other folks, put together a work-
shop that was co-sponsored by the VBA and
Champlain College’s mediation program.
The workshop had a bunch of the trainers
from what was to be the Comedy Club and it
was a really good time.
JEB: So the mediation section went to this
workshop?
RH: Yes, it was probably 25-30 people who
all participated.
NG: It was a lot of fun and it was educa-
tional, and it was where I learned the underly-
ing theory of improv, which is actually incred-
ibly helpful in mediation: instead of saying
‘yes BUT,’ when someone says something,
you say ‘yes AND,’ where you expand the
thought as opposed to contract the thought.
RH: So the way it plays out in improv is,
let’s say someone will walk into the scene
and come up with an idea that you think is
completely stupid, and flat, but you are mor-
ally obliged not to say “no, we are not doing
that” but you have to say “Okay” and make
it work.
JEB: Oh, so now I am an alien, or what-
ever.
RH: Exactly. It is one of the crucial things
in negotiation and mediation, where you
expand the threshold of what you are talk-
ing about so hopefully, not just saying, “oh I
want that” and the other person says “I want
THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • SUMMER 2019
this,” but where you bring in other ideas like
maybe you want “X” in addition to that. So
you expand the field of possibilities and in-
crease the circle within which you can come
together.
JEB: Right, creative solutions! Is there al-
ways somebody at improv like Michael Scott
in The Office, where in his improv class he
always ends up saying he is a a secret agent
with a gun and no matter what they are talk-
ing about, be it labor and delivery, aliens,
toddlers or what have you, somehow, he al-
ways seems to pull out the gun and says “Mi-
chael Scarn, FBI” or something. Do you have
some people who are just one-track mind
people?
RH: Yes, I think there is sort of a self-weed-
ing process, because in level 1, you have
people who are all over the map. I think one
of the most important lessons I learned in the
early classes is to stop trying to be funny, that
you really sort of shoot yourself in the foot
when you come up with a plan for how the
skit is going to go and how you are going to
be more clever than everyone else.
JEB: Right you must be open to alterna-
tives…
RH: Right you have to be open, you have
to be mindful, and there is a lot of people
who try it out that cannot do that and then
you know, you don’t see them at level 3 or
higher. Or they do a one off and say this was
fun, but I am not interested in doing it any-
more.
NG: Some people are better naturally and
some people are more persistent with train-
ing, kind of like me. I didn’t have any prior
experience or inspiration other than having
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