• Bruce Petrie, Jr.
    Posts by Bruce I. Petrie, Jr.
    Attorney

    Bruce Petrie is a Senior Counselor at Bricker Graydon law firm, having served clients for over forty years in education, health care, public and private sector and constitutional law. He served on the Executive Committee of the firm ...

Dr. Santa Ono, University of Cincinnati’s President, spoke today on the topic of “grit” to a gathering of students and parents. Dr. Ono is a molecular biologist and leader with grit and charisma (including 29,000 twitter followers). Dr. Ono defined grit as a student’s, or any person’s, ability to set long term goals and then dig deep ...

162 works by the greats of American art are on exhibit at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. See www.phillipscollection.org. The museum is in an 1897 Georgian Revival house in Washington’s DuPont Circle. One of the remarkable things about the collection is its range from realism to impressionism to cubism to abstract ...

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A good golf swing (so I’m told, since I have no firsthand knowledge of same) has a lot to do with balance. In baseball (thinking spring here, still snowing today) we watch each batter before each pitch go through his balance ritual: shifting weight, adjusting grip, aligning shoulders, arms ...

The worlds of math, science and art are not really so separate, even though by education and conventional wisdom many people think they are. Steve Jobs’ intuitions about engineering and art led to some of the most successful and widely used technology ever created. He knew that computing by itself wasn’t enough for the mass appeal he ...

One of my law partners, Mike Hirschfeld, participated in a program entitled “Beyond Civility: Communication for Effective Governance.” Its purpose was to connect people from diverse viewpoints and "elevate public discourse and problem solving" by seeing an opponent's point of view, listening, and avoiding stereotypes.

So ...

In a joint program with the Chicago Bar Association and Art Institute of Chicago, we presented our Continuing Legal Education Program on Brush with the Law...an Artful Eye on Law to a capacity gathering yesterday in Chicago. We looked at four United States Supreme Court decisions in health care, search & seizure, free speech and equal protection ...

George Clooney’s new movie Monument’s Men opens on February 7, based on Robert M. Edsel’s book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History. It’s the story of Hitler’s looting of the masterpieces of Europe and how a group of museum directors and art professionals-turned-soldiers ...

Following up on the previous item about Jim Borgman,  Jim sent on these reflections about his editorial cartooning career:

“As an editorial cartoonist I used to figure that I had the reader’s attention for maybe five seconds…When you think about it, it’s a remarkable honor to be given someone’s attention every day, and I tried to reward ...

While we miss the Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoons of Jim Borgman, we are glad to still have his cartoon strip Zits (with Jerry Scott). Loyal fans of the comics have their favorite cartoons, their likes and dislikes. The reason I like Jim’s work is because it has cartoon soul. Like soul music, it’s hard to define. Just the right mix ...

When a client mentions he or she has read a book lately that has been thought-provoking in running their company or organization, I usually add it to my reading list. One such book is Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants. Gladwell challenges conventional wisdom about advantages and ...

C. F. Payne is one of America’s leading contemporary illustrators and a friend. I spoke with him today about this artwork he did on the US Constitution:

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Chris said that what he was after was “perplexed” expressions on the faces of Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison. In light of 2014 politics ...

Whether observing a person’s demeanor at work or the salt you put down last night to melt the ice on the back steps…we’re always observing. Or are we? We’ve all  watched the oblivious texter walk (not to mention drive) right in our pathway. Can our powers of observation improve? Can we become more observant about observation?

There’s ...

Jack Greiner is a leading First Amendment attorney whose daughter Katie, also a lawyer, gave him this print of Norman Rockwell’s Freedom of Speech which is newly on the wall outside Jack’s office. Rockwell’s series of four oil paintings in 1943 were based on Franklin Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union Address: “[W]e look forward to ...
Cincinnati Enquirer Columnist Cliff Radel, with the help of 2,809 readers, has solved an 80-year mystery: who were the 35 workers depicted in the Depression Era, Union Terminal mosaic murals by artist Weinold Reiss? Cliff's painstaking journalistic detective work has put names to the workers. The murals are monumental works of art about the art ...

2013 Oil Painters of America Award Winner (Announced 12/20/2013)

Second Place Associate Division, Online Showcase

“Companions” by Bruce Petrie   (22” x 33” oil panel)

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If someone at the office today says they like your Christmas tie, that’s a compliment. If you ask yourself why in the world your red and green tie could be worthy of a compliment…now that’s about complement.

A complement refers to making something whole or complete.  It applies in geometry, music and art: a complementary angle completes another ...

In an out-of-the-way hallway of our law firm are some shelves with long-unused, leather-bound volumes of US Supreme Court reporters from the 1800s. Here’s a pic of one of them. 

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For bibliophiles out there, the aesthetics of an old law book will be appreciated: tobacco-colored; nicked and ...

You know the difference: the speaker who tediously repeats stuff (repetitious) vs. the one you mentally thank for going over the point again (repetition). Psychological studies show that a point can get lost without some repetition; but that too much is a turn off. The funny TV commercial that remains funny when moderately repeated can get ...

Ever heard it said: “in light of all the surrounding circumstances”? Courts, judges and lawyers use it all the time. Law doesn’t stand alone. It has to be applied in a real-world context. Legal context influences perception and outcome.

Context is also key to color. Color theory is one of the most interesting areas of arts education and ...

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”

Nelson Mandela, who died yesterday at 95, was a lawyer. No one in his family before him had ever attended school, yet his intellect took him to law school and his courage led him to set up a ...

Here's an interesting article titled “Art Makes You Smart” about a research study of 11,000 students and 500 teachers involved in the new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas (founded by Alice Walton, the daughter of Walmart’s founder). The researchers measured cognitive benefits of art museum visiting ...

Many of Ohio's county courthouses are architectural gems, located in the center of small towns, like the Clinton County Courthouse in Wilmington where legal work took me this morning.  The rural drive and first dusting of snow was a scenic start to the day, with the visual highlight being this beautiful rotunda in the courthouse. Below were lights ...

ArtWorks is an awesome non-profit organization (I’ve mentioned here before) that does incredible public mural paintings on sides of buildings in Cincinnati. Their annual Secret ArtWorks show, this Friday at 5:00 at the Center at the Mercantile Building, 115 E. Fifth St., is really fun and includes hundreds of miniature works of art for sale ...

Today is the 150th Anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, a masterpiece by a master craftsman of the language of democracy. In Cincinnati’s Lytle Park stands a statue of Lincoln, dedicated on March 31, 1917 at an outdoor ceremony attended by 20,000 to hear an address by William Howard Taft who, like Lincoln, was a former President and ...

Arts philanthropy from Cincinnatians Louis and Louise Nippert is the gift that keeps on giving to our community. The Nipperts’ Greenacres Foundation continues their legacy of appreciation for the environment, sustainable agriculture and the cultural arts.  The Greenacres Artists Guild is a 26-member group of artists who do shows and arts  ...
This portrait of George Schaefer, Jr., former CEO of Fifth Third Bancorp in Cincinnati, was painted by Carl Samson, one of America’s leading portrait artists. No doubt it is a fine likeness, but portraitists like Carl paint more than likeness. What they are able to capture is verisimilitude—the appearance of truth. Lawyers and judges speak ...

At your next meeting look around and make a mental note of who in the room seems to be watching the facial expressions of others. How about you? Are you reading facial expressions?

When proposals are being circulated in a negotiation, the attentive negotiator will put their pen down, put away the smart phone, look up from the laptop and watch for that ...

How to simplify? What’s essential; what’s not? How many details to include? These are questions both lawyers and painters ask themselves. How many questions should I ask this witness? How many facts should I put in this brief? What are the main points for the client? the judge? Should I paint in all the feathers or only a few to suggest others. How ...
This blog aims to bring together two seemingly separate worlds that could learn a lot from each other: the world of art and the world of law.

It's easy to see why people assume art and law are worlds apart. After all, one is a world of briefcases and suits, cases and deals, statutes and rules, courts and juries, documents and contracts - a verbal world ...

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