Peter Singh Composes Harmonies In Music and the Law
Peter Singh
A promise resonates like a poignant song. It rings out with sounds of dedication, devotion and commitment.
As a verb, to promise is to avow with certainty that you will uphold what you say you will do, with the hope that you will fulfill what you say. In addition to this meaning, the word has another one: it refers to a note of potential, one that is yet to be realized.
Because of these two definitions, the word “promise” hovers on the boundary line between what is and what will be. It echoes a vow itself, or a great expectation. It dances between two ideas: certainty and aspiration, assurance and hope.
Like the definition of “promise,” many people are on the cusp of living out their dreams and rising to their potential. All they need is someone to see that potential and metaphorically turn up the song, so that their music can resound for all to hear.
“Promise” is the perfect word to describe someone who is committed to fulfilling his potential. It is also fitting to portray someone who inhabits two worlds, wherein steadfastness and possibility are both important.
Peter Singh is a mergers and acquisitions attorney, and he is a musician, songwriter and producer. He has chosen “Promus,” pronounced “promise,” for his working stage name.
The name is significant to Singh because it encompasses how he sees himself as an artist. In his words, it stands for “professional” slash “musician” as a portmanteau.
Singh’s two passions, law and music, might seem different at first glance, but for him, they are intertwined, like the notes in a chord, and the two meanings of the word “promise.” There is a hopeful steadfastness found in his approach to both fields.
Singh navigates between these two professions without missing a beat. He has worked as an associate attorney with Fourscore Law for five years before recently switching to a counsel role for even more flexibility. At the firm, he assists startups, advises in matters of venture financing, and provides general counsel, in which he handles a variety of needs for an array of clients.
Singh began his career in corporate and entertainment law in New York City. Beyond his work with Fourscore Law, he is an arbitrator and mediator. In 2022, he founded Carolina Lawyers for the Arts & Entertainment (CLÆ), a nonprofit dedicated to assisting musicians and artists of all kinds with their legal needs. He serves with the North Carolina Bar Association’s Dispute Resolution Section as Co-Chair of the Race & Equity Committee.
Singh pictured in 2025 performing at The Pour House in Raleigh with NiiTO Band.
Singh has developed his skills as a musician and has been producing music since college, before his legal career began. Some of his most recent accolades are playing electric guitar for the band NiiTO on their album “The Ardency of PaperTown” and producing the song “Never Have I Walked Alone” by Kierre Bjorn.
Throughout his endeavors, he has woven the word “promise” or “ProMus” into the names for his occupational and creative pursuits. This year, Singh founded his own firm, ProMus Law, and he recently opened a rehearsal space in his garage called ProMus Land, to complement his home recording studio PS Studios and backline equipment company PS Rentals. He and his wife Tonisha even named their daughter “Melody.”
He finds that his two main interests share similar notes.
“What I enjoy about the practice of law bleeds through the music stuff and the art stuff as well,” said Singh. “It is just client service at the end of the day, knowing that they come to you for your special set of skills, and making sure you’re responsive, attentive and giving clients what they want or need.”
Singh’s commitment to each of his projects is evident. In thinking about his journey to where he is today, he recounts the many people who not only noticed his promise but also helped him to tap into it. Singh has drawn strength from those who have influenced him: his family and his mentors in music and the law.
He has played music and been engaged in the arts since he was a child. Drawing and painting were two of his interests since that time. Although he was bent towards musical and artistic pursuits, his parents encouraged him to choose a career as a doctor, engineer or attorney.
“I have Caribbean parents from Jamaica, and they don’t let you do that career as a profession. Law was carved out as the path for me. What made me actually want to do it was I used to like to dress up in suits every day. I don’t anymore. It has evolved and graduated from there,” said Singh.
“Once I started to grow up a bit, I saw how deeply ingrained law was into our daily lives, everything from the buildings that we live in and work in, there’s some deal behind the scenes there to build them, to rent them, to sell them, all the way down to the streets we drive on and the entire infrastructure.”
His parents were some of the earliest models in his life who demonstrated commitment – to their values, work and family.
Singh is grateful to his parents for many things, and says they are his heroes. His father was an engineer, and his mother was a real estate broker; now, both are retired. His father, who was an executive with a gas and electric utility company in Philadelphia, worked his way up the corporate ladder. Then, he experienced employment discrimination; he sued the company and won, and he stayed and continued climbing.
“That fortitude, that grit – I have that case file in my little bookshelf over here – always as a reminder that even in spaces where you’re not welcome necessarily, or spaces where they don’t see your value, you can make it known. You can make it plain. And you can fight and win.”
“As I mentioned, I’m not a litigator, so I don’t enjoy having to fight and having to win, but it’s a great reminder to me to pick up my sword anytime it’s needed. I was very proud to be his junior and his namesake for my career.”
Singh pictured in 2014 performing with mentor Natalie Bethea-Surgeon. Photo courtesy of Derrick Dingle.
Singh’s parents are important models of strength in his life. As he recalls his childhood and teen years, he speaks of another unshakeable force, his faith community. Singh was introduced to gospel music at his home church in north Philadelphia, Rose of Sharon Apostolic Church. There, he began to discover his skills as a musician. Learning music by ear in church helped to set the course for his future.
“We all grew up with no paid musicians at that time, so the kids could hop on, make noise, do what they do. I was one of those kids. People let me be bad until I was good. I learned a lot there from the bishop’s son, Leonard Briddell Jr., who is now a pastor in Delaware. The bishop also used to play guitar, and he was the first musician I really connected to deeply. So that’s Bishop Leonard Briddell Sr. – he’s about 94 years old and refusing to retire, so he’s still there, still playing and preaching.”
Rose of Sharon was a significant place for him because of the people who encouraged him in his talents. Another person he met through the church was John Murray, a songwriter and instrumentalist who would go on to be a worship pastor at a megachurch in Texas, T.D. Jakes Potter’s House church, for a few years.
“He was one of the first people to tell me I was good at songwriting and encouraged me to keep writing and placed a couple of songs with his people.”
As Singh grew older, gospel music continued to be important to him, especially during college. In 2008, he moved to New York to attend Hofstra University. At the time, he attended Memorial Presbyterian Church, where he had the opportunity to hone his skills as a musician. He shares that their music minister, Antony Brady, the choir director, Natalie Bethea, and their musical director, Pastor Darren Butler, all shaped him in terms of taking his raw talent and moving that forward.
At the church, he had the chance to write music for plays, and eventually, his work culminated in a self-produced EP, which he premiered there. He sold each disc he had made.
Singh’s musical abilities flourished, and after college, he applied to law school, anticipating the area of law to make for a promising career. He attended Duke Law School, where he graduated in 2015.
Singh recounts these important years, remembering how person after person recognized his potential and believed in him.
“Since I graduated law school, I have said many times that it did not teach me a lot of know-how. But it taught me a lot of learn-how, so I’m able to do some research, find my way through resources and figure things out, and I don’t think I would be as good at that without the training from law school and from each perch since then,” he said.
“I had a negotiations professor at Duke Law named Robert Beeson. I did a mediation training at Duke Law as a coach, not a teacher or trainer, alongside him, 10 years after he taught me the way. That was like a full circle moment a few weekends ago. He’s helped me get into a lot of rooms and spaces that I’d otherwise be on the outside.”
Singh pictured in 2015 at the Duke Law School graduation ceremony with classmate Chris Hood.
Following law school, Singh began his career in a boutique law firm specializing in corporate and entertainment law, Winslett Studnicky McCormick & Bomser LLP in New York City. One of the partners there, Usher Winslett, is world-renowned and a frequent presenter at ABA conferences. He encouraged Singh to learn arbitration and mediation law, which Singh continues to practice in addition to mergers and acquisitions law.
And Singh adds that contracts are promises, too; the play on words fits perfectly, given his area of expertise.
In reflecting on his path, Singh names a score of other individuals who have had an impact on him.
“Larry Studnicky got me to cut my teeth in mergers and acquisitions and has been the wise guy I call when I don’t know an issue. There’s Andy McCormick on the intellectual property front, mostly trademark stuff. Josh Graubart, I worked with his solo firm during my 3L year. He’s done international copyright and a lot of cutting-edge stuff in that intellectual property space. I’m often tapping him for advice, and he’s a Duke Law guy as well. So that was my connection there.”
“Since then, a lot of the bosses and the guys I’ve worked with have been formative. I’d say I have a piece of each of their styles or approaches to the practice of law in our client service, all of it.”
Others believed in him and helped to create opportunities for him to grow, and like his mentors, Singh has found ways to shine a light on the amazing ensemble of attorneys across the state.
As an attorney in both the mergers and acquisitions and mediations and arbitrations space, Singh has provided opportunities for others through his work with the Dispute Resolution Section. As the section’s chair of the Race & Equity Committee, he and other committee members promoted diversity, equity and inclusion in mediation and arbitration by creating a list of diverse neutrals and making this list available to the public.
The Try Someone New: Diverse Mediator List is something Singh is proud to have worked on with a team of NCBA members.
“Having heard the excuse for many, many years that people can’t find the women, the Blacks, or the Hispanics or anyone to mediate their cases, we try to stop that excuse and did something about it. You can see their resumes, CVs and experience listed, so there’s no question in terms of their competence or qualifications. That was really rewarding.”
“We do try to be a network and a community that supports people in these spaces, because I’m one of those guys that has been certified and paneled, well-trained for years and years and years now, and only recently started actually getting selected for cases,” said Singh.
“A lot of it is because I’m young, a lot of it is because I’m Black. A lot of it is because I’m just an unknown quantity, and it’s not until you have the vote of confidence from people who have done that work with you or have seen you in action that it naturally coalesces and builds to further selection.”
Singh pictured in 2022 performing at The Pour House in Raleigh with NiiTO Band.
Singh describes his NCBA community as a source of encouragement and strength. He applauds the work of the section. Beyond the “Try Someone New” Campaign, the section has earmarked a scholarship fund for diverse neutrals to be trained and certified.
“Seeing that happen every year since I’ve joined has been wonderful, just to add to that pipeline and bring in new blood there,” he said.
If in the practice of law, no person is an island, Singh has seen this same idea to be true in the field of music. Creating music with others has been both fruitful and enjoyable.
“Songwriting is to me a creative outlet. It’s also just an impulse and a need. If I don’t get stuff out, I feel like physically and literally backed up, that there’s something in me that needs to come out. It is kind of compulsive in that regard. It is compulsive, creative and the element of teamwork, I think, is a big, big thing for me.
“I used to create solo in the silo. It would be me doing every instrument, writing every lyric, recording everything, engineering everything, mixing and mastering all by myself. And a lot of that stuff, like hundreds, maybe thousands of songs, are sitting in a vault collecting dust, because I’ve learned that my best comes out when I’m bouncing off others and working with others.”
As Singh has collaborated with others in the law and in music, he has found ways to nurture the promise of other artists in the community. His passion led him to create his nonprofit, Carolina Lawyers for the Arts & Entertainment (CLÆ), in 2023. It is one of approximately 40 nonprofits in the country designed to provide pro bono legal work for artists.
His interest in helping other artists with legal concerns began when he was practicing in New York, where he did pro bono work with volunteer lawyers for the arts. The organization in New York was the first of its kind in the U.S. This pro bono work laid the foundation for his interest in supporting artists who have legal questions.
After moving to North Carolina, Singh began doing his research to see how he could help other artists in the state.
“I really started it after seeing a geographic gap. There used to be a nonprofit in North Carolina and one in South Carolina. And both went by the wayside in 2012 and 2015 respectively. I didn’t see anyone else doing it and decided it needed to be done. CLÆ soft launched in 2023 by starting as a nonprofit organization with a 501(c)(3) status, but it had been more or less a one-man band of just my pro bono arm. CLÆ is a passion project because I found my services were prohibitively expensive, so the people that needed my help generally couldn’t afford my hourly rate, so that’s what I did about it essentially.”
Since then, Singh has assisted in various matters, which include music disputes around percentage splits; issues related to fine art, such as sculptures, commissions and how to transfer them; and how to make works exclusive or nonexclusive. Beyond these concerns, he has answered questions related to film, television and documentary work and name, image and likeness issues.
Hoping to expand the resources available to artists, Singh reached out to his legal community to find other attorneys interested in providing pro bono services. Now, the nonprofit has a Board of Directors and Advisory Board and seeks other attorneys to join the cause.
“Our main mission this year is more so to try to find more lawyers to do this sort of work, so we have a lot of events and programming geared toward laying a foundation, like what you need to know to deal with the recording contract, sell a piece of art or anything along those lines, so that we’re well-positioned to deal with what comes in.”
CLÆ is one of his outside projects, but it is not the only one. Recently, Singh bought the shoe company, Glyph – not just any shoe company, but a brand he loves and wore to his wedding in 2022. The company is warehoused in Raleigh at Blue Co, and is fulfilled by Gabby’s PALS, a special abilities workforce.
Singh’s many endeavors all have one theme in common. He is committed to promoting the good of others, in the legal profession, in music and the arts and in his community.
“The most rewarding part of being an attorney is just helping people broadly. But specifically, I like helping them figure out issues that are confusing for them. And being able to sort through everything, whether it’s on the case law side or whether it’s on the market research side or even just what’s been done or what could be done differently. It keeps things interesting for sure. At the end of the day, it’s good to know that I’ve helped someone with something.”
In doing good through the law and music, Singh’s actions echo beauty and harmony for all to hear. When kindness crescendos, it has a way of reverberating from one person to another. And there is only one response that perfectly suits this kind of composition – and that is “encore”!
Jessica Junqueira is communications manager for the North Carolina Bar Association.