New Yorker Article on Mary Jo White

By Cydney Posner

You may find this article in the New Yorker on Mary Jo White to be mighty fine reading:  Characterized in the article by her friends and colleagues as "the most competitive and driven person they have ever encountered," White has been given the nickname "Sid Vicious" for her style of tennis play, a nickname that the terrorists and other criminals she has prosecuted as U.S. Attorney and leader of the "Killer Elite" of the SDNY – see below -- might find equally apt. According to the article: "White is aggressive to begin with, and inclined to see her representation of her client as a moral crusade. She is known for never publicly succumbing to the doubts and uncertainties that prey on the minds of so many of us. When she is working for the government, these qualities are enhanced." Former SEC Enforcement Chief, Robert Khuzami, who previously worked for White, has "joked that his boss ‘sleeps three hours a night, lives on three ounces of tuna fish a day, and thinks she should have been consulted on where to place the space shuttle.'" She also holds a Super Bowl party every year, has a favorite band (Fleetwood Mac) and a favorite charity (the A.S.P.C.A). Initial career goal: psychotherapist.

My favorite paragraph in the article:

"If you're not a lawyer, and you meet a quiet, studious-seeming person and ask him what he does for a living, you may hear, ‘I'm an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.' Sounds dull, like ‘I'm a tax preparer.' But the answer is a little like the one you get when you ask someone where he went to college and he says, ‘Um, Yale?' What you were really meant to hear was: ‘I'm a member of the Killer Elite, baby! I'm special ops. I'm strike force. Be very afraid!'"

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