Legal News

Move Over, Tom Delay, Here Comes Judge Rakoff!

By Ashby Jones

New York federal judge Jed Rakoff isn’t afraid of some courtroom derring-do. He’s proved that in spades in the ongoing case concerning the bonuses Bank of America paid to Merrill Lynch execs around the time of their merger.

But a recent YouTube video that made its way to the Law Blog today have proven him to be quite nimble in another arena: the dance floor!

It’s true: Judge Rakoff (pictured, right) recently showed off his moves in this CBS News video which ran over the holidays. The clip, narrated by spunky CBS News medical correspondent, Dr. Jon LaPook, tackled that tried-and-true New Year’s topic: fitness resolutions.

After a snippet on quitting smoking, the piece turns to exercise. And guess what, LBers? Many Americans are getting their cardio not on the pavement or treadmill, but on the dance floor! Enter Rakoff (at about 1:44 in the video). First, he shows off a nifty spin with his wife, then explains his relatively newly found passion for the ballroom:

“My oldest daughter was getting married, and my wife said are you going to embarrass me again with your dancing? I said ‘allright, allright,’ and to my utter surprise, I found I loved it, and we’ve been coming ever since.”

Rakoff shows off a couple other nifty moves, before the piece moves on.

We called Judge Rakoff to see if he was aiming to follow Tom Delay on “Dancing With the Stars” (or if he’d like our help in piloting a new program, “SDNY Fever”), but he politely declined to comment.

It’s been a big week for Rakoff. He also nabbed a writing award from the irreverent law journal The Green Bag for his opinion in the SEC/BofA matter. Next goal, we say: a Tony award!

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 05, 2010 (boomark / email).