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Being a law school professor, running a clinic, and studying improvisational comedy may not sound like things that would mesh together well. Yet for Emily Benfer, ’05, they do.

Benfer, a cum laude graduate of IU McKinney, is a clinical professor of law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, where she is the director of the Health Justice Project she founded in 2010. The project has served over 5,000 low-income people with health problems caused by social and legal issues. “These individuals,” Benfer said of her project’s clients, “have faced unbearable hardships and injustice. I realized that if I was going to keep fighting for them, I needed a place to recharge my soul.”

Benfer said she attended “The Best of Second City” improv review in 2012 and spent the evening laughing in a way that she hadn’t in a very long while. “I noticed a flyer about improv classes on the table at the show and thought, ‘a class where you get to laugh for three hours a week – I’m in,’” she said.

The flyer was for Second City’s Conservatory Program for adults who want to study improv as an acting technique. The program is comprised of six levels; Benfer has taken part in one and two. Level three requires an audition, and Benfer was successful. She will help write and perform a revue that will run for 8 weeks. She auditioned for the Conservatory in 2012 and was accepted, but didn’t have time to pursue it then. Thinking the first audition was a fluke, she didn’t expect to be accepted a second time.

“The basic tenent of improv is ‘Yes, and,’” Benfer said. “This is a foreign concept in the law where we are taught to challenge our opponent’s premise. In ‘yes, and,’ all ideas have value and room to grow and form – that’s where it gets real and where the real brilliance emerges.” Benfer has incorporated some of the improv games she’s learned into her law classes.

“Second City improv is rooted in satire,” Benfer said. “Improv is one of the places where I can unpack the wonderful and dark things in our world and make sense of them through a silly, serious or satirical spin. This is survival. If improv has taught me anything it’s that no matter how well I might chart the path, the path will change and where ever it leads, it’s my job to say ‘yes, and!’”