Competitive Juices Flow at Firm

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As founding partners of their own law firm in Century City, Keith Elkins and Scott Kalt don’t just divvy up attorney pay or recruit new partners. Some days, you’ll find them planning relay races.

The two like to organize and participate in competitions for firm employees. The first such event was an “office Olympics” a few years ago at the Beverly Hills High School track that included a 50-meter dash, long jump and relay race. Subsequent competitions have included volleyball, tug-of-war and even karaoke singing contests.

“We work really long and hard hours as lawyers, and we thought it was critical to the long-term success of this place that we mix having some fun in,” Kalt said.

Elkins and Kalt both played sports in high school, but neither has won one of the individual competitions. They joke they came in last place in the singing contest, when they performed an MC Hammer song. A prouder moment came when the two were on the winning side of a basketball game that pitted older employees – Elkins is 51, Kalt 50 – against younger ones.

“We’re not doing this to be drafted in the NBA anytime soon,” Elkins said. “That may have been our one and done, but we’ll take it.”

Write Stuff

Jerry Jao of Retention Science doesn’t consider himself much of a writer. The co-founder and chief executive of the big data company in Santa Monica, Jao’s life revolves around numbers and computer code more than the English language.

But for the past few months he’s been able to count himself among the ink-stained wretches, contributing a regular column for Forbes.

When an editor reached out to him last year – seemingly out of nowhere – and asked him to submit pieces, the idea seemed daunting.

“I was born in a different country and I have bad grammar,” said Jao, 30. “It takes me a while to put my thoughts together.”

So far, his writing pulls from his experiences as an entrepreneur; some of the topics he’s written about include choosing a co-founder and the battle between optimism and realism in running a company.

But he also tried to be personal and connect on an emotional level. Jao wrote a piece a few weeks ago about a friend who tried to start a company while dealing with a chronic medical condition.

What he ended up writing was advice, yet it also achieved a level of introspection.

“It was a very awakening moment for me and I wrote about that inspiration,” Jao said. “It was a post that not many people read, but I don’t care. From my end, I was really honest.”

Staff reporters Alfred Lee and Tom Dotan contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].

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