Professional Magician Will Put Magic Skills to Work in the Practice of Law

Most law students do not snag jobs as law clerks by performing magic tricks for their future employers. But for 25-year-old Kyle Ashby, a professional prestidigitator and soon-to-be DePaul University College of Law graduate, it is all in a day’s work.

His “sleights and subterfuge” helped land him a position with the Cook County State’s Attorneys’ Office in the Special Prosecutions Unit, where he teaches prosecutors how to use a new trial presentation software program for jury trials.

“I received my job as a law clerk after performing close-up magic for a prosecutor in a local bar,” said Ashby who quit a job as a radio morning show host to come to DePaul. “That was my job interview!”

While Ashby is skilled at using his hands to make audiences believe the impossible, he will experience a different kind of magic when he walks across the stage to claim his law degree. The commencement will be held at 2 p.m. May 20 at the Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Dr.

Ashby, whose father and grandfather also are magicians, mastered his first magic trick at the age of ten. Today, he is a professional prestidigitator, or sleight-of-hand artist, with expertise that is more in line with the likes of such magicians as Harry Blackstone Jr. or Penn and Teller, as opposed to a stage illusionist such as David Copperfield.

One of his favorite tricks is called the “Bill In Lemon,” which involves his burning a dollar bill that has been signed by an audience member and having it re-appear inside a lemon.

It was Ashby’s love of magic that sparked him to pursue a career in law. “I first thought copywriting magic effects and patter would be right up my alley, but my enthusiasm for intellectual property soon was crushed by the grade I received on a property exam,” said Ashby who lives in Chicago’s Lake View community. “I thought a career in law would give me some job security, a steady income and a chance to ‘perform’ as a litigator.”

After graduation, Ashby, who earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy from the University of Evansville in Indiana, will continue to perform his magic routines at parties, receptions and meetings along with practicing law. He hopes that that his experience as a magician will help him conjure up success in criminal law. “I’m comfortable performing in front of strangers, and I believe my experience as a magician has given me important rapport-building skills,” said Ashby. “I’ve found that, like magic, there’s a certain amount of showmanship to successful lawyering.”

According to dean of students Diana White, Ashby’s talents are bound to take him far. “Kyle is a multi-talented law student with a wry sense of humor that he uses to great effect both in the classroom and in his magic,” said White. “His decision to pursue a career as a litigator is a logical extension of his talents. In a sense, all trial lawyers are entertainers and magicians, and Kyle will be one of the best.”