Exit Courtroom Right

“I chose the law as a career because I thought it would allow me to exercise many of my theatrical talents,” she says. “Mounting a trial is a lot like putting on a play, but with the client’s interests hanging in the balance.”

She should know. She practiced plaintiff’s law for 15 years before deciding in 2002 to pursue play writing full-time.

Last year, her musical comedy “(Almost) Got It Made” was produced at the Bryant Lake Bowl Theater in Minneapolis and played there every Saturday night in November. The play is a reworked version of a draft Berg wrote in 1994 called “Got It Made,” which tells the story of “feisty, funny Molly’s fight to the top of the real estate deal.”

Since both Berg and her husband, Tom, have a background in the arts, creating musical theater is often a collaborative effort. Maureen writes the lyrics and a draft of the melodies of her songs, while Tom arranges the music and sings tenor on the recordings.

The couple met during law school at the University of Chicago. They both participated in student-written musicals, where Maureen acquired experience as a director and Tom became a music director.

After graduation in 1987, Maureen practiced at Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago while scratching her creative itch by founding an all-lawyer comedy troupe called The Public Offenders. The group wrote and performed original musical comedy in a sketch format and was hired to appear at law firm events.

The Bergs lived in Alabama for a few years, where Maureen worked at two plaintiff’s firms, before moving to Minnesota, where Tom became a law professor at the University of St. Thomas and Maureen was admitted to the state bar.

Instead of continuing her practice, however, she decided to focus on her passion for musical theater. “I am very grateful for everything that I learned as a lawyer,” she says. “Among other things, it gave me life experience to draw upon in my writing.”

With the acceptance of her script and music for publication by Heuer Publishing and her work on a new 10-minute play called “Decomposition,” Berg has found success on the stage, just as she did in the courtroom.

“I’m enjoying my opportunity to explore more directly some of the theatrical ambitions I had long ago,” she says. “I plan to keep on writing for the immediate future, but I don’t write off my legal career either.”