Kevin Warnock

I just read a nice tribute to Michael Traynor, an attorney I was friends with when I worked at Cooley LLP years ago. I haven’t thought much about Traynor since I left Cooley in 1994, but today I was reviewing profiles on Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, looking for entries about people I know personally.

Micheal Traynor, past president of American Law Institute

Traynor’s father Roger Traynor has a Wikipedia entry, and Micheal is mentioned in that entry. I knew Traynor was an important attorney when I was at Cooley, but I don’t think I realized that his father had been Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court from 1964-1970.

Micheal Traynor was extremely nice to me. His office was about 40 feet from my first office at Cooley, on the 20th floor of One Maritime Plaza in San Francisco, California. Later, I moved to the 19th floor.

Traynor was aware of the political storms I navigated before I prevailed and got a special promotion and an attendant committee of partners to report to. He offered multiple times to intervene on my behalf with the powers in charge. I never took him up on his offer, as I had others like Tony Gilbert helping me and it didn’t seem kind to involve Traynor.

I knew Traynor for almost five years, and he would always say hello to me, and I always felt like he was my friend and that he approved of the work I was passionate about at Cooley, which was encoding the expertise of lawyers into document assembly software so that less experienced attorneys could create documents that incorporated Cooley’s best thinking on a topic.

Until today I didn’t know Traynor was president of the American Law Institute.

I’m not surprised.

Naked Suits unveiling party June 25, 2011 - Adisa Banjoko, Ming Chang, (guest) Kevin Warnock, Judy Hoang.

On April 27, 2011 I was a judge for the Made for China Entrepreneurial Pitch Competition and Startup Fair at University of California at Berkeley.

This was a fun evening, and I made some new friends, including Ming Chang, CEO of Naked Suits.

Liu Nan had earlier arranged for me to be a judge. I met Nan at the Berkeley Entrepreneurs Forum about six months ago, and we stayed in touch.

I love judging business plan competitions.

The winner of the Made for China event is a fascinating company with the provocative name Naked Suits. Here’s a video of the team receiving their first place prize at the actual competition. They win at 5 minute marker in the video. (You can see me in the far lower right at the 5:45 marker, taking a picture with my iPhone.)

Naked Suits is a clever name.

The Naked Suits idea is that their suits are so breathable, lightweight and durable that you feel as if you’re not wearing anything at all.

While their website doesn’t say so, I understand they are using fabric that is made with nanotechnology so that it repels water and most stain causing substances.

At the unveiling, Chang set up a testing station with fabric swatches and bottles of Two Buck Chuck, the famous red wine sold by Germany’s Trader Joe’s grocery store.

I personally poured an entire glass of red wine over a Naked fabric swatch and the fabric did not get stained. The wine rolled off and the fabric remained dry once I dusted the droplet balls of wine off the fabric. None of the wine balls absorbed into the fabric. I was impressed, and that’s why I’m writing this post.

I don’t wear a suit more than about twice a year. I will put on a suit for a wedding or funeral, but I never wear a suit for work or for a date. I’m much more into sports jackets and jeans for all but the most formal occasions. So I’m not likely to buy a Naked Suit, at least until they come out with a line of sports jackets.

The suits are nice.

They are handmade in Shanghai, China without fusing, a kind of heat activated glue used on many suits.

There is red piping along the inside lining that just pops visually. It’s very eye catching, and when someone catches a glimpse of the inside of a jacket, this red bead should signal that this is a costly and luxurious product. I’ve never seen such an eye catching detail on the inside of a men’s suit jacket before, and I have looked at a lot of suits over the years. I used to wear a suit five days a week when I worked at Cooley as a programmer.

Naked Suits are a bargain at USD $695. Handmade suits usually cost a lot more. I wish Naked Suits the best of success with their exciting venture. In all my years of judging business plan competitions, I have never seen a team attempt to enter the hotly competative fashion industry. Chang and his team show a flair for the dramatic, so I like their chances. Check out the flyer they put together for their Naked Suits unveiling. This looks like it could have been produced by an established fashion brand. I’m a photographer and I like it.

Naked Suits advertisement, June 25, 2011

The picture at the top of this post shows me with three members of the Naked Suits team.

Jim Buckmaster Craig Newmark of Craigslist.org, photo from boredborg.com

Until recently in order to push a Craigslist posting back to the top of the listings, one would have to delete it and then repost it, a many step process.

I noticed not long ago there is now a ‘renew’ link-button in the ‘manage’ column of options. When one clicks this renew link, the post is reposted to the top of the listings. This is a big time saver.

Thank you Craigslist.

Dan Rather, by Ed Schilpul March 12, 2007

Dan Rather is still out there working hard.

Looks like some lawyers got some egg on their face.

Given that USD $1,500,000,000 was ‘lost’ due to this mistake, and given that JP Morgan and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP are involved, I predict this won’t get worked out for a while.

I suspect the letters LLP at the end of the law firm’s name will be their three lucky stars that will keep them in existence.

When I used to watch television news, I would watch the CBS Eveninig News with Dan Rather.

I thought CBS was horrible to Rather when they fired him over a story he read on air. I doubt he personally verified everything he read on air, so to fire him for something that turned out to be incorrect was wrong.

The issue at hand was not important at all compared to the stature of Mr. Rather.

I would argue the stature of Rather surpasses by far the stature of the US President in charge when Rather was fired.