THE WIT & WISDOM OF JUDGE RAKOFF

THE WIT AND WISDOM OF JUDGE RAKOFF: That’s the headline above a piece posted by Peter Lattman of the N.Y. Times DealBook section following day two of “the trial of the century,” as it’s been semi-facetiously dubbed. The reporter points out that Judge Jed Rakoff “runs a lively courtroom...and he continues to entertain with a wry sense of humor, blunt talk and a passion for the legal process.” Lattman then proceeds to give several examples of Rakoff’s comedy stylings from Tuesday’s court sesson. Here’s one of them: “During his cross-examination of Tim Pryce, an executive of…Terra Firma Capital Partners, a Citigroup lawyer, Jay Cohen, displayed on the overhead screen Terra Firma’s projections of how much money it was going to make on its now ill-fated acquisition of the EMI Group. ‘It didn’t work out as planned,’ Cohen said. ‘But in all of these cases these are projections of the future. The future can not always turn out as expected,’ Pryce responded. ‘Absolutely right. You never know what’s going to happen,’ Cohen said. With that, Judge Rakoff cut Cohen off. ‘Are we now engaging in homilies?’ the judge asked.” (10/20a)