Retired judge’s rock star era helps him resolve legal cases
He didn’t know it at the time, but being a lead guitarist in a ‘90s rock band on tour with the likes of Dave Matthews, Widespread Panic and Hootie & the Blowfish set up Northwest Georgia native Clay Fuller for a successful legal career.
And before you ask: No, this Fuller is not related to the Northwest Georgia prosecutor of the same name who just won Marjorie Taylor Greene’s vacated seat in Congress.
Fuller, 60, is a Dalton-raised retired federal judge who spends his days helping opposing sides in complex legal battles resolve their disputes outside court. Lately, his spare time has been taken up with a reunion tour marking the 35th anniversary of the album that got his band, Allgood, a record deal and 200 shows a year.
“It’s a pretty weird collision of the two worlds, to be hard at work preparing for a mediation next week and meanwhile, the percussionist calls to say he’s going to be late for a soundcheck,” Fuller told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the eve of back-to-back shows in Augusta, Savannah and Roswell.
Putting law school on the back burner to sign with A&M Records and perform blues-based Americana rock in venues across the country is not a typical path to a federal judgeship, but Fuller says it made him better in court.
He credits his knack for paying attention to others, listening and improvising to his experiences on stage, from “places as big and fancy and wonderful as Red Rocks (Amphitheatre)” to “total dumps.”
Like being in a touring band, bringing feuding parties together to reach an agreement requires sensitivity, understanding and adaptability, Fuller said. He said the principles he developed in his formative years on the road have helped him throughout his legal career as a litigator, federal magistrate judge and “neutral” with the alternative dispute resolution organization JAMS.
“When you get into a mediation, even if you’ve done all the hard work to understand the law and the facts, a lot of times there are surprises,” he said. “And it’s really critical to be able to be nimble and doggedly optimistic.”
Emerging from a thriving Athens music scene
Fuller was doing an undergraduate history degree at the University of Georgia in Athens in the mid-1980s when the city’s music scene was “really kind of coming of age” thanks to the success of R.E.M., he said. Playing covers of Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and others led to the formation of Allgood Music Company, a five-piece, guitar-centric jam band named after a music store Fuller’s grandfather ran in Rockmart.
Fuller, a songwriter and lead guitarist, said the band, which became known simply as Allgood, took off around the time he graduated. He said putting his law degree on hold wasn’t an issue, as ditching school to be a musician was almost a family tradition.
“My father had left college in the late ‘40s to play music professionally and then my brother, who is 12 years older than me, had done the same thing in the early ‘70s,” Fuller said. “So, the family pull of being a musician was pretty strong.”
Allgood toured from the late 1980s, firstly throughout the Southeast and eventually further afield. Its independent 1991 album, Ride The Bee, secured a record deal with A&M and a full roster of shows across the country, including the 1993 H.O.R.D.E. festival tour.
Fuller said touring with Phish, Blues Traveler and other well-known bands at the time felt a bit like being a Triple-A baseball player in a game with a Hall of Famer like Derek Jeter.
He said roughly eight years on the road with Allgood, which he likened to “a very poorly controlled psychological experiment,” came to an end in 1995 when “the record label that was passionately in love with our fourth release suddenly decided they didn’t want to put it out anymore.”
Fuller said he returned to the University of Georgia in Athens, where he unpacked his clothes into drawers for the first time in years and started his law degree.
Finding common ground in music and law
After Allgood disbanded and as he initially focused on his legal career, Fuller said his guitar playing temporarily ground to a bit of a halt.
In 1999, he graduated from UGA Law and clerked for Judge Richard Story in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. Fuller was later appointed to that federal court as a magistrate judge in 2012, having practiced as a litigator for just over a decade, mostly on the plaintiffs’ side.
During his 12 years on the bench, Fuller presided over close to 250 mediations, laying the groundwork for his current role as an arbitrator, mediator and court-appointed special master. He said the skills he honed as a member of a touring rock band are often useful in the context of alternative dispute resolution.
“Watching each respective side adjust their positions and then me having to adjust my approach within the two different rooms to try to bring them together for a deal, it has some very real similarities to the times that on stage, we would be at a point in a song where we knew we were just going to play for a little while in a certain key and respond to each other and see where it goes,” he said.
Fuller said another experience from his musician days that he leverages as a legal professional is also what he misses most about touring: traveling through America “unlocking” different parts of the country and seeing how all kinds of people live, “one mile at a time.”
Though he’s based in Atlanta, Fuller’s work with JAMS is national in scope.
“Almost invariably I can make a connection with someone based on having been through their part of the world in that time frame,” he said.
Reliving Allgood’s glory days
Over the decades, Allgood gets together to put on a show every year or two, but its Ride The Bee anniversary tour of Georgia is larger and more special than anything the band has done in a while, Fuller said.
He is one of three original Allgood members touring, alongside fellow 60-year-olds Corky Jones, the lead singer, and Mike Sain, the bass player.
They opened in Augusta on Thursday to coincide with the Masters golf tournament, played Friday night in Savannah and performed in Roswell on Saturday. Allgood’s fourth and final shows are in Dalton and Macon on May 8 and 9, respectively.
Fuller said he, Jones and Sain are grateful to be able to reconnect with fans, knowing their performing days are limited as they get older. He said touring without the pressure of it being a livelihood means they can play music solely for the joy of it, like when they first started.
“There’s a feeling that comes from playing songs that we wrote that kind of approximates time travel,” he said. “We can go back and visit that era from the vantage point of our busy family and professional lives, and it’s just a really special thing to be able to do with your best friends.”
Fuller said it’s not just his time as a musician that has a positive influence on other aspects of his life — he’s also a better band member because of his experience as a judge and mediator.
“I really think that helping people and businesses navigate out of difficult legal situations has made me more understanding and empathetic when small disturbances or conflicts may arise,” he said. “I think I’m a lot more flexible and solutions-oriented.”
About the Author
Journalist Rosie Manins is a legal affairs reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
