Osler's Razor

On Wednesdays, I have been profiling my classmates in the Yale Law class of 1990. It has been such a revelation-- to find out the remarkable things they all have been doing.

Nancy Kestenbaum came to Yale after undergrad at Penn and a few years of work-- during the two years that I was goofing around as a process server in Detroit, she was doing serious work as an analyst for the Department of Energy.

At school, Nancy was a star among the group of geniuses, strivers and misfits that found themselves in that small, ferocious pool. She was smart and prepared and insightful in class and out of it-- which mattered, since a lot of our intellectual discourse was out in the hallways or the dining hall or the courtyard (or, occasionally, the Anchor Bar). She had something else, too that made her stand out: she was a caring, conscientious person, a good listener, who had a reassuring smile for some of us where a little rougher around the edges. It seemed certain that she would do great and good things.

And she has.

Like many others in our class who followed the same three-step pattern (including me, Rich Sullivan, Mike Schwartz, Jeb Boasberg, Vernon Grigg, Jim Brochin and others), Nancy clerked for a judge (in her case, the legendary Kimba Wood), worked for a firm, and then shifted to being a prosecutor. With Rich Sullivan and my late (and much missed) friend Katherine Baird Darmer, she worked as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York. By all accounts, she was an excellent prosecutor, and rose to become the head of the general crimes unit-- a job that involves training new lawyers in the office and managing the disasters they can create.

From there, she moved on to the Covington firm in New York, where her talent shone through again. She was a member of the firm's management committee, and is now the co-chair of their White Collar Defense and Investigations group. Her work sounds fascinating. Among other cases, she was retained by CBS to conduct an outside investigation into their own CEO, Les Moonves. She also worked on a clemency case during the Obama initiative, among other pro bono projects.

Sorting though some of Nancy's work, I came upon this quote, which is just right:

I learned so much from my classmates. They were so smart and excited to be at YLS and to participate in what it offered. YLS fosters an atmosphere where people can engage and push themselves, but not feel as much pressure as they otherwise might. When I first entered law school, (now Second Circuit Judge) Guido Calabresi was Dean and he gave a famous speech during first-year orientation about “stepping off the treadmill.” My classmates and I took that advice to heart—we took risks and had fun.

I think it is still true of many of us: we are taking risks and having fun.