Interview with federal judge dropping tomorrow
And new episodes of Khurram's Quorum with Rakesh Kilaru and Dai Wai Chin Feman
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Update on Pani Cooler
This newsletter will be sent selectively and now focuses on sharing episodes of exceptional lawyers relevant to the South Asian legal community.
Interview with federal judge dropping tomorrow
I’m very excited to share an interview tomorrow with a prominent South Asian federal judge tomorrow. I’ll share it on LinkedIn, find me here.
Since 2020, Khurram’s Quorum is where I break down the playbooks exceptional lawyers have used to chart their path. If you want to support the podcast, you can:
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Rakesh Kilaru of Wilkinson Stekloff on Khurram's Quorum
Rakesh Kilaru is a partner at Wilkinson Stekloff. When I first learned about Rakesh, I was stunned. Here was this litigator who in a few years had resolved headline-making disputes, including defeating a $21 billion challenge to the NFL’s media model, defeating the FTC’s challenge to Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and negotiating an innovative settlement over the NCAA’s compensation rules.
And he's barely over 40.
I reached out to Rakesh to learn more about his practice, and the conversation flowed. For someone of his accomplishments, Rakesh is remarkably humble. He's driven by excellence and impact. We could easily have recorded a much longer episode.
In this episode we discuss these frame-shifting principles:
- Practice making decisions under uncertainty. From his time at the White House, Rakesh learned to map the real stakeholders, build trust as an honest broker, and make sure everyone who needs a say is actually in the loop before deciding
- Choose environments that improve decisions. A fixed-fee model removes distortions, encourages collaboration, and lets teams right-size effort to outcomes.
- Focus. Work out from first-principles what is helpful to a jury or judge, and continually ask what are the 1-3 issues that matter.
- Challenge assumptions. Don't rely on conventions from the practice area, but identify your own solutions.
- Develop a generalist mindset. You can settle cases, you can try them. You can take principles learned in products liability to antitrust cases and beyond.
Dai Wai Chin Feman of Parabellum Capital on Khurram's Quorum
Dai Wai Chin Feman is Managing Director and Corporate Counsel at Parabellum Capital, a litigation funder. You might already know Dai Wai - I quietly published his episode Sunday night and he was already getting texts about it by Monday morning.
I've known Dai Wai for a number of years from an early interest in litigation finance. He was generous with his time and knowledge. I followed his rise as he became one of the leading voices in litigation finance policy. Today, he's funded a number of the most outstanding litigators I know. So I knew I wanted to dig into his story.
This episode is exceptional. In his episode on Khurram's Quorum, we break down the system Dai Wai has built for career success: a diversified portfolio of relationships, skills, and value-creation mechanisms for businesses and networks.
1. Business development creates differentiation when technical skills are commoditized.
2. Optionality multiplies this by developing multiple career paths simultaneously.
3. Affinity networks become firm-wide value platforms, not just personal networking.
4. Deliberate generosity treats relationships like portfolio diversification - invest broadly since you can't predict which connections matter.
5. Policy expertise becomes a defensive moat in niche industries.
6. Progress from "say yes" to strategic "no" to protect your systems while preserving ability to seize high-value opportunities.
7. Daily habits (20-minute social support + real-time alerts) create information arbitrage at scale.
Optionality is the meta-strategy. Dai Wai helps us understand here how to implement it.
Freshwater Counsel
I’m a partner at Freshwater Counsel, a recruiting agency focused on placing lawyers at elite big firms and boutiques.
We create options for elite lawyers. Here are our outcomes so far for 2025:
- 12 placements in patent litigation, complex commercial litigation, funds, ECVC, M&A, patent prosecution
- Placements at Cooley · Orrick · Latham · Quinn · Mayer Brown · Bird Marella · Caldwell Cassady & Curry · Mintz · DLA Piper · Lowenstein · Nutter · Troutman
- Offers at WilmerHale · Gibson Dunn · Ropes & Gray · Skadden · Sidley +16 more
- Placements in NYC · DC · LA · Silicon Valley · Boston · Dallas
- Average ~3 offers each, 9/12 received signing bonuses, non-prorated bonuses, or both
- Average 44 days to accept an offer, 8/12 got their first interview within a week
- 7/12 are litigators, 6/12 are patent litigators
- Counsel promotions for 2/12
Our process sparks lawyer curiosity and guides firm decisiveness to find strong fits.
Considering your options or hiring trial-ready talent? Email khurram@freshwatercounsel.com to learn how we create options. Check out the testimonials below.