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Thursday, November 3, 2022
Miami Beach Bandshell
$103,031 fundraised

Winner: The Meltones for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Miami. Featuring legal professionals from Greenberg Traurig

Judges’ Choice Award: Hot Damn! for Miami Music Project. Featuring legal professionals from Jones Chase Employment Lawyers

What a night! Thank you for coming out to the Miami Beach Bandshell last Thursday and helping make the Inaugural Law Rocks Miami such a success!

After three long years of planning, we finally made it to Miami, where five bands of legal rock stars battled it out for local nonprofits. The competition was fierce, the sets were awesome, and the Miami Beach Bandshell was packed with fans.

The evening raised over $100,000 and ended with an overall win by The Meltones of Greenberg Traurig and Hot Damn! taking home the coveted Judges' Choice Award.

Special guests, The Sunset Four opened the night with an impressive set of Beatles covers, shocking the audience with their musical talent at such a young age.

Hot Damn! of Jones Chase Employment Lawyers thrilled the audience and judges, taking the stage donned in full barrister wigs and gown and performing an energetic set starting with Living on a Prayer. The audience was pumped by the theatrical high-energy performance.

Disbarred of Locke Lord; Mathison Whittles; Slusher Rosenblum; and Searcy Denney took us into harder rock and showed incredible talent taking on songs by Rush, Metallica, and Ozzy Osbourne.

Not to be outdone, The Meltones of Greenberg Traurig proved why they're such a powerhouse. Not only experts at fundraising, but expert musicians as well. The lead singer showed off her amazing pipes, belting songs by Melissa Etheridge and the like as the band rocked along.

The Urge of Meland Budwick; Clyde & Co.; Weiss Serota Helfman crushed songs by the Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, and The Killers and had the audience joyously singing along with their cover of "I Don't Wanna Be" by Gavin DeGraw.

The night ended with Seven Seas of Dentons; Blank Rome; JJR Abogados of taking us to the 70s and 80s with another powerhouse vocalist. The crowd was dancing along and singing along to their brilliant covers of songs by Blondie, Rosette, Eric Clapton, and more.

An excellent night of talent with some extraordinary fundraising efforts! The Rock Panel of Judges did not have an easy job. The Panel included Dana Culvin, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of Miami Jewish Health and board member of Rhythm Foundation. Paul Lehr, founder and CEO of GroundUP Music Foundation, lawyer, and musician; Juan Martinez, shareholder at Gray Robinson, and drummer for Wide Awake; and Doc Reno, legendary radio DJ at BIG 105.9 and founder of My Family Matters Foundation. Longstanding host of our events around the world and Law Rocks Foundation Trustee, Damian Hickman, fueled the audience for a great show, encouraging fans to donate and helping to keep funds coming in through the night. At the end of the night Law Rocks founder, Nick Child and Law Rocks US co-founder, Ted Scott joined Damian onstage alongside Law Rocks staff in a rare moment of being all in the same city!

Law Rocks wouldn't exist without the support of all the bands and firms - major thanks to every participating band! Thanks also to the Miami Beach Bandshell team, the Rock Panel of Judges, our host, and our nonprofit guests. None of this would be possible without our sponsors, making the show possible - thank you Greenberg Traurig; Jones Chase; LawPay; Secretariat; International Dispute Resolutions Centre; Arbitra; HKA; Meland Budwick; and Weiss Serota Helfman Cole + Bierman.

Thanks for everything, Miami! See you next year…

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Featured

Special Guests, The Sunset Four

Roaring from the king tides onto the shores of Miami Beach, comes The Sunset Four, the world’s youngest Beatles tribute show! The group is inspired by the Miami Beach 2nd performance of The Beatles on the famed Ed Sullivan show on February 16th 1964. The four members, Oliver Lieberman, Zoe & Evangeline Lyons, and Warren Bromley, all now 13 years old, are lifelong residents on Miami Beach. The group has been performing at local venues and schools for the past four years, and have mainly focused on charitable events. The unlikeliness of four youngsters becoming a Beatles tribute show has created a huge draw to their shows, which sometimes have had up to 1500 in live audience, and an astonishing 18,000 live streaming shows.

Disbarred

Featuring legal professionals from Locke Lord; Mathison Whittles; Slusher Rosenblum; Searcy Denney
Rocking for Greyed A Greyhound

Disbarred is a Palm Beach based band made up of mostly lawyers from different firms who have been playing together for many years. We are John Whittles of Mathison Whittles LLP on guitar, Daniel Fiorello of Locke Lord LLP on lead vocals, Jeremy Slusher of Slusher Rosenblum PA on the bass, Brian Denney of Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, PA on drums, and Michael Fiorello of DeliverLean on guitar and vocals.

Disbarred plays mostly hard rock cover shows at various venues around Palm Beach County. Regardless of the venue or the music, the band is always playing for a good cause and donates proceeds to charity.

Hot Damn!

Featuring legal professionals from Jones Chase Employment Lawyers
Rocking for Miami Music Project

The band Hot Damn! representing Jones Chase Employment Lawyers, have been playing together now for 8 years - born out of friendship, music, a love of employment law and a thirst for that moment when the rhythm finally does get ya!

The band loves nothing more than a mash up and the songs can come at you from any genre or decade - they will be on stage, off the stage, on your mind, on the dance floor and with you in times of work-related challenges too.

The Meltones

Featuring legal professionals from Greenberg Traurig
Rocking for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Miami

Global law firm Greenberg Traurig is excited to have its house band, The Meltones, gracing the stage at the Miami Beach Bandshell. The Meltones, named after firm co-founder Mel Greenberg, have been rocking in various incarnations since the mid-1980s, and are proud to be six-time Law Rocks NYC Champions. Now they have their sights set on winning the inaugural event in Miami, home of Greenberg Traurig’s founding office! The Meltones have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for local non-profits and couldn’t be more thrilled to play for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Miami. The LawRocks-Miami edition of the Meltones includes three attorneys from GT’s Miami office (on guitar and vocals, Miami Real Estate Shareholder, Burt Bruton; on vocals, Miami Litigation Associate, Jessica Fishfeld; and on guitar, Miami Real Estate Associate, Daniel Thwaites), with able backing from Burt’s three good friends in local Miami band The Click (on bass and vocals, Larry Misrahi; on keyboards, Danny Howe; and on drums, Allen Lynch).

Seven Seas

Featuring legal professionals from Dentons; Blank Rome; JJR Abogados
Rocking for The Rhythm Foundation

SEVEN SEAS is the band of the Maritime and Transportation Committee of the International Bar Association, and has been rocking together since the inaugural IBA Law Rocks in Boston in 2013.

The Urge

Featuring legal talent from Meland Budwick; Clyde & Co.; Weiss Serota Helfman
Rocking for Young Musicians Unite

The Urge — A rock cover band playing throughout South Florida. The band has played together in various incarnations since 1996. With hundreds of songs in their repertoire, The Urge is now focused on more guitar oriented, heavier and edgier material, but will still break out the classic oldies. The band features Fred Fein, managing partner, Clyde & Coe, lead vocals/guitar; Mark Meland, partner, Meland Budwick, P.A., lead vocal/bass; Joe Hernandez, partner, Weiss Serota Helfman Coe & Bierman, lead guitar/vocals; and Frank Del Campillo, drums. The Urge is playing for Young Musicians Unite (“YMU”) which believes that every student deserves access to music education regardless of their socio-economic background. In fact, Mark Meland is currently on the Board of YMU and is an alum of the Miami Beach High School Rock Ensemble which is a YMU run organization. Notably, the stage at the North Beach Bandshell, the Law Rocks venue, is “The Clark Douglas Burris Stage” who was the original founder of the Rock Ensemble and taught music at Miami Beach Senior High School for 40 years while fighting MS.

We are proud that the Inaugural Law Rocks Miami 2022 raised funds for the following organizations.

Featured

Featured

Rock Judge - Paul Lehr

Paul Lehr, involved in the arts since age six, trained as a classical pianist and worked as a musician. As former CEO of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, Paul created programming with the Kennedy Center, Universal Music, Sony Music, and co-developed its Emmy Award Winning Masterclass Series on HBO. As GroundUP Music Foundation CEO, he develops partnerships and produces the annual GroundUP Music Festivals. Lehr also serves on the Board of University of Miami Frost School of Music.

Rock Judge - Juan Martinez

Juan is a trial lawyer who focuses his practice on commercial and corporate litigation. He has extensive experience handling a wide array of contractual disputes, business torts (including fraud, defamation, civil theft, civil RICO, etc.), shareholder and partnership disputes, judicial dissolution actions, and real estate disputes (including commercial foreclosures, title disputes, and commercial lease disputes). While his goal is always to assist clients in resolving their disputes in an amicable and cost-effective manner when possible, he is known in the community as a skilled and widely respected trial lawyer. Juan is also known for his meticulous attention to detail and his ability to develop innovative and effective pretrial and trial strategies.

Juan has been published in the area of enforcement of judgments rendered by tribunals in foreign countries. He is regularly selected as one of South Florida’s top attorneys in the South Florida Legal Guide and Florida Trend publications. As a native Miamian and fluent Spanish speaker, much of Juan’s work is centered around representing clients from Latin America.

In addition to his lawyering day job, Juan is also active in the music scene. Over the years, Juan has played with many of South Florida’s leading musicians. Since 2017, he has been the drummer for Wide Awake, a well-known U2 Tribute Band. Wide Awake regularly plays in South Florida. You can follow them on Facebook at and on Instagram.

Rock Judge - Doc Reno

Cancer nearly silenced the voice of national radio powerhouse Doc Reno.

It also led the dynamo media personality to launch the My Family Matters Foundation to fill a heart-breaking need he encountered during his treatment and recovery.

Originally from Cleveland, Doc Reno came to South Florida in 2002. Here, he built a coast-to-coast following for iHeartRadio with shows in major markets including New York, Washington, D.C., San Diego, Dallas, in addition to right here at BIG 105.9 in Miami.

At the same time, he pursued a healthy lifestyle, becoming an avid runner who has completed marathons and half-marathons. He serves the community through his association with many charities including Joe DiMaggio’s Children’s Hospital.

In the spring of 2018, Doc Reno was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. During 35 rounds of radiation and six rounds of rigorous chemo, he never missed one of his daily shows.

He was hospitalized twice.

“I met nurses and doctors and heard stories,” Doc Reno says. “I met people who were struggling financially. I learned there are programs that help you with medical bills, but they don’t pay your house payment or your car payment or buy groceries.”

Doc Reno was moved by the parents and family members who missed work to take their child or relative to the countless medical appointments required for successful cancer treatment. Often, the caregiver’s pay is docked.

Then, after a particularly difficult morning that sent Doc Reno to the hospital, the cold reality hit home.

His wife Erin stayed at his side until he was released that evening. The following week, her paycheck was missing one day’s salary.

“This really happens. I heard everyone’s story. Now it happened to us,” Doc Reno says. “This is happening, and people need help.”

He launched My Family Matters Foundation in the fall of 2018.

“I wanted to create my own foundation because nobody is going to be more passionate about it than I am,” he says.

Doc Reno’s longstanding work with Joe DiMaggio’s Children’s Hospital led to My Family Matters’ successful partnership with the hospital’s foundation.

Today, 3 1/2 years after his diagnosis, Doc Reno is cancer free.

He says, “My wife told me, ‘You are going to help people after you beat this.’ That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

- By Carolyn DiPaolo

Rock Judge - Dana Kulvin

VP, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of Miami Jewish Health. Board Member Rhythm Foundation. Lover of live music.

Host - Damian Hickman

Damian Hickman is the is the Managing Director of the International Dispute Resolution Centre, which he set up in 2000. Before this he was the Manager of The Fleet Arbitration Centre which he joined in 1994. Damian is been regularly consulted in the setting up of other dispute resolution centres around the world.

Damian is a member of the International Arbitration Charity Ball Committee and Trustee of the Law Rocks! Foundation, as well as a Governor of the Europa School, a bi-lingual free school in Oxfordshire. He comperes as many Law Rocks! gigs around the world as he can get to and is very much the 'face' of Law Rocks!