The View From Up North: Meet a Very Funny Lawyer

Meet a lawyer who lost her mojo for laying the prosecutorial smackdown on some pretty bad dudes and decided to become a stand-up comedian instead.

This is the first in a series of posts I am going to write about interesting lawyers doing cool, non-law stuff with their lives.

We’ll kick it off with Jess Salomon (@jess_salomon). A few years ago, she was an Associate Legal Officer in the President’s Office of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Sounds like important stuff, right? Living in The Hague, laying the prosecutorial smackdown on some pretty bad dudes.

Then she lost her mojo for the practice of law. Rather than stay in a job for which she’d lost that loving feeling, Jess leapt into something that really tickled her knees — the world of stand-up comedy.

She splits her time between comedy clubs in Canada and the United States. Right now she is honing her craft in the Big Apple. If you’re in NYC and you want to support your fellow lawyer in her attempt to put her law degree to better use, you can catch her at 8 p.m. on January 25th at the If You Build It show (Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre East) or at 7 p.m. on February 10th at the Polar Vortex show (Pete’s Candy Store).

Here’s my slightly edited dialogue with Jess:

Steve Dykstra: What law school did you graduate from?

Jess Salomon: I went to McGill. Common Law and Civil Law. Two degrees in three years, baby. “Baby” is a showbiz term.

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SD: Are you a Montreal native?

JS: I am. The last remaining Anglo hold out in my family, now looking to make a permanent move to NYC. Green card holders, holla!

SD: What did you do for the UN?

JS: I drafted orders and decisions, worked on judgments, and also did some political work because I was in the President’s office, which involved writing speeches, reports to the Security Council and the General Assembly, diplomatic briefings in The Hague, press releases. I worked on some committees, like the Rules Committee. That’s where people tried to figure out how to speed up trials while preserving the rights of the defense. Sexy.

Oh, and I killed [Slobodan] Milošević with my bare hands.

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SD: Does that cause callouses?

JS: (Laughs) He was pretty well moisturized. So no problems with callouses.

SD: How long were you thinking about making the move to stand-up?

JS: Not long. Once I killed Milošević, I knew I had to get out. Stand-up seemed liked the best option. Comics aren’t super-judgy.

SD: What’s the first thing you did once you decided to make a change?

JS: I left Holland. It’s not an ideal place for comedy. I’m not saying the Dutch don’t have a sense of humor … they just don’t use laughter to express that emotion.

SD: What was the biggest hurdle you had to overcome to make a change?

JS: Unlearning a lot of behavior that prevents me from being funny. I’m still working on that one.

SD: Like what?

JS: I am generally a very diplomatic person. With stand-up it is better to just say the thing. You have to cut out the hedge words and just get to the point. Being too diplomatic doesn’t work in stand up.

SD: Who did you have to get buy-in from?

JS: No one has bought into Jess Salomon yet. It’s a penny stock. There’s nothing to lose people, buy me! I don’t really understand the question.

SD: Most of us have a support system — like family, friends. We need to convince them about a major change as much as we need to convince ourselves.

JS: I’m not the kind of person who people thought would be a stand-up comedian. Whatever the stereotype is, is not me. When I decided to leave the job, it wasn’t like I was leaving to do stand-up. I was just looking to take two years off to learn to write comedy. In that time, I tried stand-up and I got hooked on it. When you’re just leaving for a year or two, it’s looked at as a sabbatical and you can always go back.

SD: Where do you get your material from?

JS: I guess it’s a combination of personal experience and lately I’ve become a bit more observational. I’m kind of in a place where things that make me angry I try to turn into comedy. In the beginning I talked a lot about sex. But, now I want to aim for more political stuff.

SD: Do you still get nervous when you get up on a stage?

JS: Yeah, definitely. It depends on the show. I like it when I get nervous. It generally makes my shows a little better. The worst thing that can happen to me on stage is sweating. It’s not funny or acceptable for a woman to sweat. If I were a fat, male comic from the 80s, everybody would think that’s natural.

SD: How do you validate what is funny? Is it simply audience reaction? Or do you have a group of mentors that give you feedback?

JS: If I can, I run stuff by friends. Otherwise, it’s just getting up at open mics and trying stuff out. And it’s very scary because you never know how it’s going to go. It happens once in a while that I write stuff down and know it’s going to work. But, I wish I could be the type of person that can write stuff down and know it’s going to work. I know some of the time and other times I learn from a non-reaction from the audience.

SD: What would you like to be doing in 5 years?

JS: Headlining shows for all the people that buy into me.

SD: Any words of wisdom for lawyers who are looking to escape the practice of law?

JS: Well, I feel like it’s irresponsible to encourage people to leave the practice of law. If there is something inside of you that you are burning to try, if you can start already while you’re still practicing law, if you can figure out the logistics of it, you should go for it. If you know something is burning that isn’t going to go away, you have to try it. You don’t want lingering regret.

SD: Anything else you would like to add that readers might find interesting?

JS: I recently realized that all my teenage celebrity crushes turned out to be crazy people: Kirk Cameron, Mel Gibson, and David Hasselhoff. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

I have no idea, Jess. That’s something for you and your therapist.

That’s the View From Up North. Have a funny week.


Steve Dykstra is a Canadian-trained lawyer and legal recruiter. He is the President of Keybridge Legal Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm that places lawyers in law firms and in-house roles throughout North America. You can contact Steve at steve@keybridgerecruiting.com. You can also read his blog at stevendykstra.wordpress.com, follow him on Twitter (@IMRecruitR), or connect on LinkedIn (ca.linkedin.com/in/stevedykstra/).