d by dy

He came to law school because he got in and because he wanted to make his grandmother happy.  Once here, he played ice hockey with Brian “Red” Burke, now GM of the Anaheim Ducks.  When he found out that the b-school had a more organized hockey team, he applied there and graduated with a dual degree.  Now he’s back for a lunch program as a distinguished alumnus.

His philosophy to life is easily understood.  A line he borrowed from Drew Faust’s commencement speech describes it well.  “Do not park your car twenty blocks from your destination.  Drive and see if you can park in front of the building you are going to.”  After graduation, he did a sort of an apprenticeship in real estate in New York.  Then, he went to Europe and built something from scratch.  His thesis is that differentiation is king.  Cultural arbitrage, for example, is one of his ways to achieve that.  The key question for him is always about how to create value.

He clearly thought law school a poor use of his time.  Indeed, “Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be lawyers.”  He did concede that dual degree students had a cachet:  studying law made them appear intelligent.  But even about that concession am I not sure.  Perhaps he was half-jokingly suggesting that intellect may be a bad thing in business.

He never took the bar exam.  He got the stack of review books and sent them back.  As soon as he did that, his wife gave him a pen with his initials on it.  It was originally meant to be a gift for bar passage.

He did not appeal to every student.  For example, he claimed women were a group often neglected by established real estate companies because (1) most managers were men; and (2) most of the women in those companies were engineers or contractors so they were like men anyway.  Maybe not an erroneous observation, but that certainly did not endear himself to Elle, who shook her head in protest.

But that is the man he is.  A man who knows which building he was going to, and who dares park in front of it.  And that is admirable.

There are some strange people in the legal profession.

Per ATL post:

During law school, DB developed a reputation “as a racist, sexist jerkoff who always flaunted the fact that he was wealthy.” Here’s why:

His first words upon meeting his law school roommates: “Hi, I’m DB. I’m independently wealthy.”

In a class discussion about price discrimination and consumer choice, he said: “Sometimes when I’m in a real hurry, I am forced to fly coach.”

At a law firm reception, he said to the attorneys, “Don’t you miss the good old days when there were no girls at a place like this, except for hookers and strippers?”

This charming lad then made his way to 125 Broad Street, where he joined GP (general practice; S&C-speak for “Corporate”) at Sullivan. Now, S&C pays well — in addition to generous base salaries and year-end bonuses, they pay supplemental bonuses to senior associates. But DB was unimpressed:

“My allowance used to be bigger than whatever I earn from this place. I feel so poor now that I’m working.”

DB continued to run his mouth at SullCrom. Some gems from his time at the firm:

DB was fat when he started, then lost a lot of weight. He was obsessed with working out and spent hours every day in the gym. This led him to conclude that fat people “had no reason to live.”

In a crowded elevator, DB expressed the view that FIG (financial institutions group) at S&C is home to “all fat and ugly” lawyers. When confronted about this remark by partners, he noted (correctly) that fat and ugly are not protected classes under the Constitution.

DB went to a diversity event and declared that racism does not exist.

DB showed up drunk to a fundraiser for a domestic violence assistance center and yelled: “Where my battered women at?!”

On “bring your kid to work” day, DB struck up a conversation with a five-year-old. Speaking very loudly and slowly, “as if the kid was retarded,” he pointed to a colleague a few feet away and said: “You’re lucky he’s not your daddy, because then you’d have male-pattern baldness.”

A summer associate asked DB about hanging out. DB: “Yo man, you’re not my friend. You’re nothing to me. You are nothing but $60 for lunch and $80 for dinner.”

Per someone who commented:

DB was more than a legend at CLS … he was THE legend (at least for our JD class):

1. At on-campus interviews, he interviewed with 6 different Skadden offices and spent every spare moment in their hospitality suite, “because Skadden is the best law firm and clearly where I belong.”

2. After dropping ~80 lbs. over 1L summer, he made a point of loudly mocking overweight people at every law school social event.

3. A junior partner saw DB double-fisting at a firm’s cocktail event for 1Ls and said, “maybe you want to slow down a little there.” DB’s response (with his nametag on!) was, “i’ll drink as much as i f-ing want to … it’s not like you’re going to give any of the 1Ls summer jobs anyway.”

4. In a 130-person contracts class , DB asked a 15 minutes long “hypothetical” question about whether an agreement with “someone’s” rich uncle under which that “someone” could not get “around 4 million dollars” unless that “someone” went to law school was enforceable.

5. Despite his obvious charm and savvy, DB did not get a summer offer from any of the firms he interviewed with on-campus. Career Svcs. had to pull strings and eventually landed him a summer job at a firm’s foreign office.

6. In the CLS Law Revue show, he was given a (repeated) shout-out during a song listing things students hated. Another student with a similar name was so concerned that people would think the reference was about him (instead of DB) that an announcement had to be made clarifying who the song was about.

7. DB told a female partner at S+C that he thought that a firm event at the ballet was “an excellent idea, since it reinforced traditional gender roles.”

FYI, no one is quite sure how/why he was hired at S+C.