Happy to Practice: Lawyer, once a violin student, donates legal services to the symphony and opera boards

Ryan Opel, 31, was an early bloomer in music.

He took up the violin when he was 4 and played it in orchestras through much of his youth. He seemed headed toward a performance career.

These days, though, he only occasionally takes out his fiddle to play it around the house. And the last time he played symphonic music was during his undergraduate years at Wake Forest University.

"I was practicing several hours a day," Opel said, recalling a turning point that occurred around the beginning of his high-school years in Green Bay.

"I just made the decision that I was interested in too many other things. I didn't see myself practicing for a living."

What he did eventually see himself practicing was corporate law, which he has done in Winston-Salem since graduating from Duke Law School in 2002. Opel works in the downtown offices of Womble Caryle Sandridge & Rice. He and his wife, Dawn, whom he met while playing in WFU's orchestra, have a son, Ian, who is 3.

Music still remains a major part of Ryan Opel's life -- a fact that underscores the idea that an avocation can be married with a vocation. He has become a volunteer lawyer behind the scenes for two local music organizations, Piedmont Opera and the Winston-Salem Symphony.

"I've developed other talents that I can now give back in a very different, but no less important, way to these organizations I care so much about," he said recently in a spacious conference room at Womble Caryle Sandridge & Rice.

"It's fun to sit in the audience and say, ‘Sure, I didn't play a note. But I wrote a fundamental corporate-governance document that helps this organization run more efficiently.'"

Opel served a three-year term on Piedmont Opera's board before rotating off in June 2007, and he still sits on the company's personnel and legal committee. He is now a board member for the symphony.

Legal notes

Both organizations seek his legal counsel. For example, he often reviews contracts pertaining to hall rentals before they're signed. And both Piedmont Opera and the symphony enlist Opel's assistance with such governance matters as bylaws, policies, procedures, charters and audits. He has also helped recruit younger audiences and secure sponsorships.

This work has gotten the attention of the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, which awarded Opel its R. Philip Hanes Young Leader Award at its annual meeting last fall.

While on the board at the opera, Opel oversaw a review of the company's bylaws. Bylaws clarify a lot of things: what board members do, how long they serve, what sort of transition process should precede a change in leadership as well as numbers needed for a meeting's quorum. They state who gets to participate in various decisions and who has the authority to perform certain tasks.

Bylaws can seem "boring, dry and dull," said Bonnie Poindexter, Piedmont Opera's executive director. But she said that they're vitally important and must be done -- even at small organizations who are understaffed, overworked and don't think they have the time.

For without bylaws, she said, "you can find yourself in a lot of trouble" -- such as when there are no term limits for board members and some of them see no reason why they should "rotate off" and have to wait a year before they return.

"You have to force fresh life and new blood into the organization," Poindexter said. "That's an example of what a bylaw can help you with. (Because) there is a limit to that term, you don't have somebody who gets in there and is hard to get out. It's just like running the government. We finally got rid of that guy."

Opel is now playing a lead role in revising the Winston-Salem Symphony's bylaws. Merritt Vale, the symphony's executive director, called that a "prudent" move designed to make the symphony "a better, stronger, (better)-managed organization all around."

"This is important because we are entrusted … with the faith and support of the community that supports us," Vale said. "We want to make sure that ... we can demonstrate that without any question that this is an organization that is well-run and good stewards of the financial and other resources that are entrusted to us."

Poindexter made a similar point: "When you answer to the public, you better have your act together. We are public trust. People give us lots of money."

An unusual board member

Vale plugged the advantages of board service for a person like Opel, a young professional who is married and has a young child.

"We're committed to doing more outreach to people in Ryan's age group," she said. "It's important that our board also reflect the interests and view points and opinions of … new audiences that we are able to serve more fully."

But try as they might, boards have a difficult time recruiting the likes of Opel. Poindexter said she wished she could "clone him five times" but acknowledges that many young professionals might find they lack the time and money for tickets and donations that board service requires.

There are two reasons that Opel has taken the board plunge.

First, Womble Caryle Sandridge & Rice has a formal process in place for encouraging its employees to do pro-bono work. Tripp Greason, the firm's pro bono director, e-mailed that Womble doesn't require pro-bono work from its lawyers but that the "profile" of its lawyers should include it. In practice, that translates into at least "54 hours per year per attorney."

"We've got to be developing good relationships in our community so that we continue to be sought after by people that are in need of legal services," Opel said. "One way we do that is by making a difference and dedicating our time to doing pro-bono legal, to being involved in community organizations."

Second, Opel remembers that music education taught him "what it's like to be good at something and how rewarding it can be to be good at something."

"You also learn that that you didn't get there by sheer luck," he said. "This (volunteering) is a way of giving back. I have benefitted a lot from music and music education."

■ Ken Keuffel can be reached at 727-7337 or at kkeuffel@wsjournal.com.