It's not often we get invited to law firm events that involve honest-to-goodness famous people. Around here, a phonecall from former attorney general Michael Mukasey is usually as close as we get to a brush with celebrity. So when Dewey & LeBoeuf forwarded an invite to a "conversation with director and filmmaker, Spike Lee," there was no chance we were going to pass it up.

Dewey's diversity committee invited Lee to speak as a part of the firm's annual celebration of Black History Month. An appearance by the Do The Right Thing director can cost upwards of $25,000 (£17,000) under ordinary circumstances. Lucky for Dewey, the firm is home to one of Lee's go-to lawyers, partner L. Londell McMillan, who says he "had a few favours in the bank" with Lee.

McMillan is a bit of a modern-day Renaissance man: On top of being legal adviser to Lee, Prince, and other entertainers, McMillan is the executive publisher of hip-hop magazine The Source and a business partner of rapper Jay-Z and real estate developer Bruce Ratner in their efforts to relocate basketball team the New Jersey Nets to his and Lee's home town of Brooklyn.

On Wednesday afternoon, McMillan introduced Spike Lee as his "friend and sometimes client," quipping that the filmmaker "should be more times client".

"Your rates are too high," Lee responded, eliciting chuckles from the 200-plus lawyers and staff in attendance in the firm's Manhattan conference room.

Early on in his talk – "The Role of Black Media in Shaping Race Relations in America" – Lee joked about the choice of February, the shortest month on the calendar, to celebrate black history. He looked at ease among the crowd of dark suits in his brown leather jacket, black mock turtleneck, and tortoise-shelled glasses. A cross pendant dangled from his neck.

Between stories about his childhood in Brooklyn and summers with his grandmother in Atlanta, and anecdotes about individual films, Lee mused, "The reason the United States of America is the most powerful country on this planet is not because it has more nuclear bombs. No nuclear bomb has influenced how people talk, how they dress, how they dance. Young kids in Africa, China, and Russia are not mixing on a turntable because of a nuclear bomb," he said. "It's culture. That's where American gets its power."

It was a full hour, including a Q&A session at the end, with mention of Barack Obama, the Academy Awards, and the projects Lee currently is working on. Three biopics have been on the table for a while: one about pioneering baseball star Jackie Robinson, another about boxer Joe Louis's fights with Max Schmeling, and a biography of James Brown, starring Wesley Snipes.

"If you take Will Smith and Denzel Washington out of the equation and you walk into the Hollywood studio system there are only a couple of films they want to make," Lee said. "They want to make a hip-hop, shoot 'em up drug film or a lowbrow comedy. If you want to deal with anything outside those ghettos you need independent financing. That's why Londell and I have been talking."

McMillan's on it. After the event, the lawyer confirmed that he has been talking to Lee about starting a fund to tap the capital markets to produce movies.

This article first appeared on americanlawyer.com, Legal Week's US sister title.