Dancer Turned Lawyer Keeps a Foot in Both Courts
By Jan Pudlow
FloridaBar.org
Yolyvee Rivera, center, an associate at Richman Greer in Miami, works with the Miami HEAT dance team. Rivera danced with the squad while in law school. Now she volunteers 10 to 15 hours a month helping the team prepare for game days.
By day, Yolyvee Rivera excelled as a third-year law student at St. Thomas University, serving as senior articles editor of the Law Review and making the dean’s list.By night, she sweated through grueling rehearsals from 7 p.m. to midnight, perfecting spirited routines to rev up the fans at pro basketball games as a Miami HEAT dancer.
Her dual life in 2008-09 combined her two passions: law and dance.
Before lacing up her dancing shoes for her big gig before an audience of 19,600 at American Airlines Arena, she was buckling down with law books.
In the spring of 2008, she’d interned for Florida Supreme Court Justice Harry Lee Anstead. From May to August, she completed another internship at Richman Greer in Miami.
Before embarking on a demanding legal career, this classically trained ballerina wanted to “scratch her dancing itch,” so she tried out for the very competitive HEAT dance squad.
Since she no longer worked there and had no idea she’d make the cut from 300 women trying out for the team, Rivera never told her supervisors at Richman Greer.
“The partners are HEAT season ticket-holders, so they figured it out. But I have gotten nothing but support from them,” Rivera said.
She also got the promise of a job after graduation and passing the Florida bar exam and was hired in 2009 at Richman Greer.
Now an associate at Richman Greer in the practice areas of commercial and complex litigation, and family law, 27-year-old Rivera is no longer on the dance team, but still stays involved with the HEAT dancers.
She donates about 10 to 15 hours a month assisting Janine Thompson, director of the Miami HEAT dancers, with coordinating the dancers on game days.
“On game day, we go nonstop from 5 p.m. to 10:30,” said Thompson. “Yoly (pronounced Jo-lee) is extremely helpful and so professional and so sweet at the same time. I have to say, Yoly is the one who has dedicated her time the most out of everyone. She has gone above and beyond.”
Thompson, who was an IT consultant when she was on the dance team, said a lot of dancers are in school or just starting careers, including one dancer in medical school.
In looking for dancers, Rivera said, the HEAT wants to make sure the women have not only the right moves but the right stuff for representing the team in the community at promotional and charity events.
During the interview process, Rivera recalls, she was asked why she thought she could be a positive role model.
“My response was: ‘I am a young lady of character. Not only can I feel I can serve the team, I can show diversity. I am pursuing my degree in law.’ We are not just young ladies who go out on a stage and shake our behinds. We are actually intellectual.”
Dancing since age 4, Rivera grew up in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Every summer since she was 11, she’d receive scholarships to train at prestigious Joffrey Ballet School in New York, Ballet Concierto de Puerto Rico in San Juan, and at the School of Boca Ballet Theatre.
Not only a classical ballerina dancing en pointe on the tips of her toes, she trained in jazz and hip-hop dance, too, and considers Janet Jackson her dance icon.
While receiving her undergraduate degree in public communications at American University in Washington, D.C., she minored in dance. Her dream to be a professional dancer took her to New York, until she realized how difficult it is to make ends meet in the big city on a dancer’s paycheck and her family so far away.
Rivera wondered what else she could do to make a good living that would incorporate her love for dance, and decided to go to law school, where she wrote an article titled: “Dance and Copyright: Twirling Around the Issues of Statutory Protection for Choreography,” and dreamed of representing dancers in court one day.
Dancing for the HEAT was a part-time job with full-time responsibilities, she said.
“At first, it was so overwhelming dancing in front of such a large audience,” Rivera said.
“I enjoyed doing what I love to do, which is dancing. After a while, it became so easy. Our role was to entertain the audience. I had such an amazing experience as a Miami HEAT dancer. The message I would like to get across is these girls who sacrifice their time are extremely dedicated. It’s a job we take very seriously.”
While her colleagues at Richman Greer have been “extremely supportive with this decision,” Rivera acknowledged everyone doesn’t think it’s dignified to be a scantily clad dancer in tail-shaking routines. But to Rivera, it is an art form and vehicle for self-expression.
“I am aware that other attorneys are not happy with that decision. When people see dancers for the first time, and see the costumes they wear, they automatically, just being natural human beings, think of it as degrading,” Rivera said. “There is a negative stigma about dancers from the NBA. It’s very sad. My goal in this whole thing is to be one of the individuals able to take that stigma away.”
