A lot of our humor is kinda juvenile. So now we’ll throw some erudition into the mix. Recently we learned of this fun fact:
A partner at a big New York law firm, a litigator, has the following quote from Ludwig Wittgenstein on his wall. “The world is all that is the case.”
Those of you who majored in philosophy should already be laughing.
For those of you who didn’t, here’s an explanation (which we provide at the risk of sounding pedantic):
In that context, it completely warps the meaning of the quote. Witty meant it as: “The world is composed of all facts.” To the litigator it meant: “The case is the entire world.”
The story actually came to us sans the identity of the litigator; we didn’t redact anything. If you know who it might be, feel free to drop us a line.
Based on the feedback we’ve received, it seems that you share our obsession with the brilliant Rachel Kovner.
In case you don’t know, Ms. Kovner is (1) the best student in the history of Stanford Law School (“the Empress of Palo Alto”); (2) a future law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia (“Nino’s Girl”); and (3) the daughter of the $2.5 billion man, Bruce Kovner.
(The rather odd picture at right is from her Facebook profile. Don’t ask us, we’re as confused as you are.)
One thing we’ve heard is that Rachel, despite her brilliance and her wealth, is a quiet and unassuming young woman. She doesn’t call attention to herself; to the contrary, she eschews the limelight. She doesn’t like people knowing that her dad is the 93rd richest man in America (a fact that’s in the public domain, readily ascertainable by anyone with Google).
Now all this is quite understandable. After all, Rachel doesn’t want certiorari petitions sent to the Supreme Court with footnotes like this: “If the Court declines to hear this case, petitioner respectfully requests that this petition be construed as an application for a $5,000 loan from Ms. Rachel Kovner, so petitioner can get momma a facelift.”
But it’s just not a realistic approach to the world for someone in the Jimmy Choo shoes of Rachel Kovner — as we will now explain, in this open letter.
Dear Ms. Kovner:
Greetings from your friends at Above the Law. As you surely know, we have written about you extensively in the past week. See, e.g., here and here.
We understand from some of your friends that you are a modest and low-key person, uncomfortable with being the center of attention. But given who you are, your aversion to the spotlight is simply untenable.
With your blinding intellect, and your father’s mountains of hedge-fund cash, it was only a matter of time before the world discovered you. Greatness knows no hiding place. The proverbial cream rises to the proverbial top.
So Rachel, dear, listen up. You got a Supreme Court clerkship, and we didn’t; so maybe we’re in no position to give you advice. But we ARE a little older than you, and we’ve been around the block, so please permit us a few words.
Here is today’s lesson (which we hope you’ll learn with the same diligence that earned you the top grades in Stanford Law history): There is nothing more important than fame.*
Yes, fame. Celebrity. Your name on everyone’s lips. People knowing who you are, even though you have no clue as to who they are. An off-the-chart Q score. People constantly talking about you — for good or ill. Take to heart the words of Samuel Johnson: “I would rather be attacked than unnoticed.” Or this old adage: “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
Remember the saying “Whoever dies with the most toys wins?” It should be updated for today’s world: “Whoever dies with the most Google hits wins.”
As we’ve said again and again, Rachel, you are fabulous. A superstar. And you need to stop denying or hiding from that reality. You are one of the greatest legal minds of your generation. And your father is one of the world’s richest men.
So start playing the part. Find your inner diva, and let her shine. Show up tomorrow in Judge Wilkinson’s chambers and shout, at the top of your lungs: “I am Rachel Kovner. Hear me roar!!!”
In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?
First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
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We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
• 2nd to 5th year mandarin fluent M&A associates needed in Beijing and Hong Kong at several firms;
• Korean fluent 2nd to 4th year cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 5th year Japanese fluent M&A associates needed in Tokyo;
• 4th to 6th year mandarin fluent cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 4th year M&A / cap markets mix associate needed in Singapore.
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A lot of our humor is kinda juvenile. So now we’ll throw some erudition into the mix. Recently we learned of this fun fact:
