During the past 30 years, Steve Bergerson has marketed himself exhaustively as the "suit" who understands the artistic mind. It's paid off. He's now the go-to attorney for the national advertising community, a group not enamored with lawyers, as well as for many top minds in the creative class.
And Bergerson's pre-eminence is more than just a matter of marketing. It's a natural fit. Bergerson has understood the need to mix artistic ambitions with business realities ever since he was in his late teens, working as a drummer in a rock 'n' roll band. And not just any band: the Mystics, who in May were inducted into the South Dakota Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
"I wanted to be a full-time musician for a long time," he says, "and was for a long time, basically until I went to law school. During the summer, I was working five days a week at a day job and playing six or seven nights a week. I would do it all again in a heartbeat."
After leaving the Mystics to attend college at the U of M, Bergerson played gigs off and on with a wide variety of Twin Cities-based bands, including the Castaways, Five Easy Pieces, Terry and the Pirates, and others. However, Bergerson says, he eventually made a conscious decision as a husband and father of two children to "not be the guy playing in a club after age 40. It just wasn't going to happen. Of course, [now 65-year-old] Mick Jagger went on to make a fool out of me, and so did most of the other rockers.
"I still want to be there [on stage] ... but I can't. That's water over the dam. The desire doesn't go away; you just stop doing it."
Bergerson's passion for music started in high school. He and a friend with a guitar practiced in his bedroom, memorizing one song after another. Without drums at the time, Bergerson banged on a Butternut coffee can as a snare drum and used the bedpost as a cymbal.
The duo played a gig at their high school during a winter celebration, and the rest, as they say, is history.
"[My friend] and I played two songs by the Fendermen, and the crowd went crazy," he says. "I remember it to this day. Goosebumps. It was like, 'Wow, this is fun!' That was it; I was hooked."
As a largely self-taught drummer, Bergerson was tapped to play with the Mystics while in school at Northern State College in Aberdeen, S.D. He had met the band members by attending a few of their gigs, and they gradually became friends. When the drummer left the group, Bergerson was in.
"It's like being a lawyer," he says of that right-place, right-time moment. "If a client wants to make a move and you're not on the radar, you're not in the running."
The four-man group, which had been formed a few years earlier, was a regionally celebrated rock 'n' roll standby in South Dakota and opened for names such as the Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Knox. (Bergerson played with the group from 1963 until mid-1965.)
One fan was Don Fritz, the enthusiast who spearheaded the formation of the South Dakota Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
"I had the pleasure of enjoying their music in the early '60s at a place called Tacoma Park near Aberdeen," Fritz says. "They specialized in playing late-1950s, early-1960s rock 'n' roll.
"The place was packed and the Mystics knocked them dead."
Fritz adds that the Mystics cut two records in Minneapolis, including "a catchy tune called 'Crying Over You,' which was a No. 1 regional hit."
Bergeson initially wanted to be a commercial artist, but switched to business in college when he realized that "there were a lot of starving artists ... who were notably more talented than me."
While he thrived being on stage with the Mystics, Bergerson also went to work offstage improving the band's financial standing. He took over the group's booking and promotion shortly after joining, transmuting it from largely a "bar band" to a group that played most of the notable dance halls in South Dakota and western Minnesota.
After transferring to the U of M in 1965, Bergerson graduated with a degree in mass communications and advertising. After that, while in law school at William Mitchell, he edited an award-winning newspaper (The William Mitchell Opinion) but also fought to become the first person to sell ads for the paper to make it financially independent of the college.
As always, combining creativity with fiscal awareness.
Today, he's chair of Fredrikson & Byron's advertising, marketing and trademark law group, and a member of its entertainment law group. He advises three primary client groups: advertising agencies; large advertisers themselves; and, to a lesser extent, clients in the entertainment industry, primarily authors. His practice encompasses advertising law, intellectual property and entertainment law.
Bergerson never thought he'd fit in at a large law firm. Yet things change. (He tells a story about the board at William Mitchell being a stodgy "old boys' club" when he attended school. Today, he's a trustee himself.) John Stout, who wooed Bergerson to the firm 19 years ago-after a year or two of coaxing-laughs at Bergerson's characterization of himself as a "bucking bronco" who required some time to be saddled. "I don't think anybody ever got the saddle on him," Stout says with a chuckle. "It just took us a little time to play in tune together."
A decade or so ago, Bergerson told Stout and Stout's wife, Marcia, that he was finally going to sell his drums. He says they mounted a "throw your body on the train tracks" campaign to stop him. Stout remembers the conversation well.
"We said, 'That can't happen,'" says Stout. "That was such a ridiculous idea." But with Steve, "If he does anything, he only wants to do it really well. He is a perfectionist," says Stout. "Good lawyers have to be."
He's also a master self-promoter. Bergerson's past ad campaigns (all created by Bergerson himself) have cast him as a bullfighter ("If he wasn't an advertising attorney, what would Steve Bergerson be?") or as himself with a brutal black eye and broken glasses ("Nobody fights harder for good ads"). Some of the more sedate offerings simply show a close-up of Bergerson with a registered trademark symbol stamped on his forehead. The guy knows the business of advertising, although today he focuses most of his marketing efforts on direct mail and e-mail campaigns.
Bergerson characterizes his legal career as a happy one, a perfect merger of creativity and discipline. Still, he's a bit wistful about the path not taken.
"I cannot go to a concert or watch anything musical on TV without dying to see the drummer, and dying to be the drummer," he says. "The drummer drives the band. It's the drummer that kicks butt. [In law], I guess it's similar. They're not following you-you're leading them. You're the one who's maintaining the beat, keeping the time.
"I'm really not a good follower," he adds. "I'm not bragging about that; it's just that I'm not. And I won't say that I'm a good leader, but I'll just say that I like to lead."
Back to Articles
