Who Is Jaymie Parkkinen? Elon Musk's Lawyer In Battle Against Openai Moonlights As A Clown

(MENAFN- Live Mint) Elon Musk has been fighting his former protégé Sam Altman for nearly two years in a very public feud over the future of OpenAI, with the Tesla CEO filing several lawsuits against the ChatGPT maker.

To fight this battle, Musk has set up a team of elite lawyers led by Jaymie Parkkinen, who also moonlights as a clown.

Elon Musk's battle against OpenAI is being led by his firm along with another. Meanwhile, Sam Altman has assembled his own team of elite law firms, including Morrison & Foerster and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz.

The unusual career choice has put Jaymie Parkkinen in the spotlight, a lawyer with Toberoff & Associates. Here is everything you need to know about him.

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Jaymie Parkinnen is one of the leading lawyers who is at the forefront of Elon Musk's legal battle against OpenAI, which he initiated after the ChatGPT maker restructured from a hybridised nonprofit into a for-profit company.

A lawyer by the day and a clown by the night, Parkkinen is credited with fighting hard in discovery disputes for Elon Musk's case.

“All of my comedy friends - none of them can believe I'm a lawyer. And none of my lawyer friends can believe I do clown,” Parkkinen said in an interview with Business Insider.

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If your mind pictures Jaymie Parkkinen as a red-nosed, colourful-haired comic, you would be far from the reality. According to him, clowning is a high-concept physical comedy like what Charlie Chaplin used to do. He uses the word in a way regular people would describe“improv”.

“When you strip away all the social masks that we all wear, if you strip away gender and politics and money and status and power, and you're just your raw human self without all of the trappings of society - who are you? And clown tries to answer that question,” Parkkinen told Business Insider.

He joined Toberoff & Associates out of an interest in intellectual property law. According to the firm's website, Jaymie Parkkinen is an associate at the company and his practice focuses on intellectual property and entertainment litigation matters.

He graduated at the top 3% of his class from UCLA School of Law in 2017, receiving his Juris Doctorate. Parkkinen also serves as an adjunct professor of law.

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However, the seriousness of his job does not keep him from his artistic ventures. He also runs his own“Clown Cardio business” in Los Angeles, which he opened after realising the physical toll that clowning comes with.

Parikken also argues that the performance side of a clown has also helped him navigate through the legal world, which he views as a world that requires performance.

“At the end of the day, it's just about connecting with people, and so is being a lawyer,” he said.“You're connecting with a judge, a jury, opposing counsel.”

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