Akin Gump Alumnus: Matt Erskine

My thoughts go back 20 years, to the year 1990, when I worked at the Washington, DC office of the Dallas-based law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. And, yes, those were the happiest times of my life, working for my mentor, Bob Strauss.

During the summer of 1990 the firm hired three temporary employees. They were college students: Ben Greenberg (University of Pennsylvania); Robert Wyman (Brown University); and Matthew Erskine (University of Virginia). Greenberg, Wyman, and Erskine were three fine lads; at least, that's how Arlen Specter would characterize them. Bob Wyman was a friend of Matthew Hoffman, son of the Supreme Leader, Larry "The Hoff" Hoffman.

Of three of them, I thought that Greenberg had the best head on his shoulders. I think he was originally from Miami. I wouldn't say he was necessarily smarter than Wyman or Erskine, at least not in an academic sense, but he struck me as "clear headed and shrewd" (which is how Freud described Ernst Lanzer, a lawyer, who was one of Freud's most famous patients.)

He seemed less assimilated than Wyman, but now I'm exposing my prejudices. Yes, I have concerns about the intelligence of assimilated Jews. J.D. Neary and Maggie Sinnott took Erskine to lunch one afternoon to make him an offer of a permanent job. Of course, they would pick the non-Jew! Haha. That just exposes my rift with the upper echalons of the Party. I would have made an offer to Greenberg. But then, I'm not a fan of goose-stepping.