TEXAS LAW FIRM PASSES OUT $100 MILLION IN BONUSES

TEXAS LAW FIRM PASSES OUT $100 MILLION IN BONUSES

By David Maraniss August 22, 1990 Email the author

AUSTIN, TEX., AUG. 21 -- People joke about lawyers, sometimes out of anger, sometimes out of envy, but usually the legal eagles get the last laugh. That often happens on payday, especially the type enjoyed today at Vinson & Elkins, one of the largest and most powerful law firms in Texas. On this day, $100 million in bonuses was distributed to 490 employees, from senior partners to mail clerks.

"It was a very good day for us," said managing partner J. Evans Attwell, a master of understatement.

The $100 million was the final share of a mother lode of contingency fees earned by the law firm for representing a consortium of companies that wanted to build a coal-slurry pipeline from Wyoming to Texas.

When the consortium, ETSI Pipeline Project, was thwarted, it sued five railroad companies, charging that they had disrupted, delayed and destroyed the project through administrative maneuvers and by refusing to allow rights of way.

Vinson & Elkins took the case on a one-third contingency fee, meaning that if it won, it would receive one-third of the settlement and, if it lost, it would get nothing. For six years, the firm worked for nothing, in a sense, doing an estimated $25 million worth of work before the railroads started to settle.

Four settled before the issue reached federal court, and the fifth, Santa Fe Railway Co., fought and lost in court, then settled instead of appealing. It was the Santa Fe portion of the settlement that appeared in the firm's paychecks today.

Overall, by Attwell's estimate, the firm received slightly less than $200 million from a settlement that neared $650 million for the winning consortium, which included Panhandle Eastern Corp., the Bechtel Group, Enron Corp. and K N Energy Inc.

Considering that Texas was the state in which Pennzoil, represented by lawyer Joe Jamail, won a $3 billion settlement against Texaco, the railroad case seems modest. But it is the largest settlement in Vinson & Elkins's history, "a once-in-a-lifetime" windfall for any firm, Attwell said.

Some employees received more than others, according to a formula worked out by the firm's management committee. Attwell would not discuss specific bonuses but acknowledged that the distribution process included secretaries and mail clerks. He also said a few employees became instant millionaires.

Senior partners and those associated with the case got the most out of the deal. "There were a few parties around here today," said Attwell, who added that "it would be safe to say" even more parties were held outside the firm's Houston office.

If the partners at Vinson & Elkins had a good day, even theirs paled in comparison with the bonanza reaped by lawyer Gilbert "Buddy" Low of Beaumont. It was his good fortune to be the local attorney chosen by Vinson & Elkins to be on the legal team when it filed the civil lawsuit before U.S. District Judge Robert Parker in the state's southern district in Beaumont.

The suit was filed there rather than Houston because its docket is lighter. Traditionally, the leading law firms add a local lawyer to their team in such cases.

For his role, which largely consisted of taking depositions from the Santa Fe board chairman in Chicago and the Santa Fe president at a resort in Colorado Springs, Low took in $13 million. He has invested most of it and spent some on a two-week vacation through Europe with 12 relatives and friends.

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How does it feel to gain sudden wealth? "I wasn't wealthy before, and I'm not wealthy now," Low said. "Money doesn't make a man wealthy."

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Domestic Terrorism or Insider Terrorism

Domestic Terrorism?  

Accident or Deliberate 

After personally enduring endless harassment with certain but mostly now former Contra Costa County Law Enforcement Officials all apparently stemming untimely coincidental connections linked to serial tragedies the cards have turned.

The surreal collection of incidents near those known to me which have impacted everything from businesses, to personal friends and relatives or family.  When Officer Youngstrom was murdered on SB -680, I already had police reports on file where the Youngstrom/Bennett informal converstation was recorded in the Walnut Creek Starbucks on N. Main Street around March 2012 and there he is shot dead but worse investigated by the famous DA Investigations Team functioning under Contra Costa District Attorney Mark Peterson who in June 2017 pled guilty to Perjury.

He took the deal so he could squeal.

The list of the deceased is long enough that most would fold on victim #2, I held on years watching my friends get slaughtered.

The Dubious Cases

What I never expected to find was dead witnesses but I also never expected to link the November 2004 Kinder Morgan Gas Line Explosion to Alicia Driscoll and Mountain Cascade.  Sometimes life is a coincidence and sometimes it's a conspiracy.  This case is a conspiracy between Civil Attorneys, The Grand Jury, investigators and this Arson Victim who discovered connections between the 2010 PG&E Fire, his 2004 Arson and failures up and down the investigative trail.

The worst part is someone referenced these witness deaths as unfortunate.

Click here and take a long look at this little girl.

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The Deceased

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Case CIVMS4433 - GAS PIPELINE EXPLOSION CASES

2004 Kinder Morgan Explosion

The devastating explosion behind Las Lomas High School took the lives five workers.  No told you about the other murders until now!

Learn more 

The Litigation History

Source:  Contra Costa County Courts

Case CIVMS4433 - GAS PIPELINE EXPLOSION CASES 

Complaint Number: 1 Complaint Type: COMPLAINT Filing Date: 06/13/2005 Complaint Status: ACTIVE
Party Number	Party Type	Party Name	Attorney	Party Status
1	PLAINTIFF	JEREMY KNOX	MCNULTY, PETER J	First Paper Fee Paid
2	PLAINTIFF	JOHANNA KNOX	MCNULTY, PETER J	First Paper Fee Paid
3	DEFENDANT	MOUNTAIN CASCADE INC.	BUSBY, JOHN W.	DISMISSED 10/10/2006
			BUSBY II, JOHN W
			BUSBY, JOHN W
			TOLIVER, SHAWN A
			TOLLIVER, SHAWN A.
			JOHNSON, MICHAEL K
4	DEFENDANT	KINDER MORGAN ENERGY PARTNERS L P	NORMAN, WILLIAM H.G.	PARTY DISMISSED 01/04/2007
			Unrepresented
			KEKER AND VAN NEST
			NORMAN, WILLIAM H.G.
5	DEFENDANT	EAST BAY MUN EAST BAY MUN TY DISTRICT	GOLDBERG, LAWRENCE D.	DISMISSED 10/10/2006
			GOLDBERG, LAWRENCE D
			GIMPLE, RANDY W.
6	DEFENDANT	CAROLLO ENGINEERS,P.C.	HENDRICKSON, ROBERT C	DISMISSED 09/14/2007
			HIGGINBOTHAM, J. MICHAEL
			FISK, DAMON M
7	CLAIMANT - DEFENDANT	STATE COMPENSATIONINSURANCE FUND	Unrepresented	Serve Required (WaitS)
8	DEFENDANT	COMFORCE TECHNICALSERVICES	KASS, DENNIS B	DISMISSED 01/23/2007
			KASS, DENNIS B
			KASS, DENNIS B
			LINN, PETER J
			LINN, PETER J.
9	DEFENDANT	EAST BAY MUN ICIPAL UTILI TY DISTRICT	VERNA, MICHAEL P	PARTY DISMISSED 03/13/2007
30	DEFENDANT	CAMP, DRESSER & MCKEE, INC.	ROJAS, JORDAN	DISMISSED 09/14/2007
			ROJAS, JORDAN
53	DEFENDANT	SFPP L.P.	ROWE, JILL B	PARTY DISMISSED 03/13/2007
			NORMAN, WILLIAM H.G.
			NORMAN, WILLIAM H.G.

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Richard Blum

Richard Blum

CHAIRMAN

Richard C. Blum is the Founder and Chairman of Richard C. Blum & Associates, Inc., the general partner of Blum Capital Partners, L.P., a long-term strategic equity investment management firm which acts as general partner for various investment partnerships and provides investment advisory services.  He currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of PAG.  He is also Co-Founder of Newbridge Capital (now part of TPG Capital).  In the past, Mr. Blum has served on the Boards of many prominent companies, including CBRE Group, Inc., Fairmont Raffles Holdings International Limited, Northwest Airlines Corporation, Myer Pty. Ltd. in Australia, Glenborough Realty Trust, Inc., Korea First Bank, URS Corporation, and National Educational Corporation.

Mr. Blum is former Chairman of the University of California Board of Regents, where he continues to serve as a Regent.  He is former Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.  He was appointed by President Obama to be a member of the President’s Global Development Council.  Mr. Blum founded the American Himalayan Foundation and Blum Center for Developing Economies at the University of California, Berkeley.  He is the Honorary Consul of Nepal. Additionally, Mr. Blum serves on the board of trustees of the following non-profit organizations: The Asian Art Museum Foundation, The Carter Center, Central European University, Glide Foundation, The National Democratic Institute, The Simon Wiesenthal Center Inc., and The Wilderness Society.  He is an Honorary Trustee for the Brookings Institution and is also a founding member of the Council of Advisors to National Geographic International.

Prior to founding Blum Capital, Mr. Blum was with Sutro & Co. for 17 years, holding various positions including director, major stockholder, and member of the Executive Committee.  He earned both his B.A. and M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2006 he received an honorary doctoral degree from the University of San Francisco’s McLaren College of Business. Most recently, he was awarded the Haas School of Business’ Lifetime Achievement Award.

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How energy giant tried to cut a deal / Duke Inc. offered to reduce bill if state halted probes

Christian Berthelsen, Chronicle Staff Writers

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, May 3, 2001

A major electricity generator sought to end state investigations and lawsuits into price gouging last month, offering in exchange to take less money than it was owed, according to documents made public yesterday.Duke Energy Inc. of Charlotte, N.C., offered in April to stop imposing premiums on electricity prices and said it would accept less than the full amount it was owed for power sales. But in exchange, the state would have to drop all investigations and curtail litigation surrounding the pricing of electricity.
The proposal, which the company made public yesterday, also sought to restrict the governor's comments on the crisis and bar him from blaming the state's energy problems on an unregulated energy system."Governor will continue to indicate that the California crisis is an aberration due to flawed legislation of Gov. Wilson, not a necessary consequence of deregulation, and will not advocate scrapping deregulation in wholesale power markets," the proposal said.
Officials said yesterday that the request never made its way to Davis himself. Instead it was passed on to the office of California Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
"(Duke) called us, and we referred it to the AG," said Steve Maviglio, a spokesman for Davis. "They came to us. We had a couple of meetings. There was no negotiation about any of the points. We don't have the power to call off any of the investigations, nor would the governor under any condition do that. This is their wish list."
A Lockyer spokeswoman, Sandra Michioku, would only say that the attorney general's investigation into power generators is continuing.
Federal energy regulators have ordered Duke to return $20 million in what it described as overcharges in the California power market in January and February.

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KKR:Deatrice to Be Acquired by Kohlberg : $6-Billion Leveraged Buy-Out Accord Is Biggest in History

Beatrice to Be Acquired by Kohlberg : $6-Billion Leveraged Buy-Out Accord Is Biggest in History

November 15, 1985|NANCY YOSHIHARA | Times Staff Writer
Beatrice Cos. agreed on Thursday to be acquired by the investment firm of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. in a deal valued at $6 billion--the largest leveraged buy-out in history.

The Chicago-based food and consumer products company entered a definitive agreement after New York-based KKR sweetened its offer, raising it to $50 a share--$43 in cash and $7 in preferred stock--from its previous offer of $47 a share in cash and securities.

The offer, based on Beatrice's 109 million shares outstanding, is worth $5.45 billion. However, if KKR purchased all outstanding Beatrice preferred stock, warrants and options--the equivalent of 11 million shares--it would push the price up to $6 billion.

The deal included so-called lock-up options designed to discourage competing offers for the company. The options give the investment firm the right to buy the "crown jewels" of Beatrice's diverse operations in case the deal is not consummated.

No Suitor Expected

Analysts doubted, however, that after so long a time another bidder would surface to jeopardize the buy-out.

"The chances are very good that this deal will go through," said Marvin B. Roffman, an analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia. "Shareholders will be happy with the price . . . and management also has put its kiss of approval on it."

William W. Granger Jr., chairman and chief executive of Beatrice, said in a statement: "I believe this is an excellent transaction for our shareholders. At the same time, we are mindful of KKR's intentions to keep Beatrice as a major and growing enterprise headquartered in Chicago."

Beatrice's current management, however, will be changed. Henry Kravis, managing partner of KKR, told the Associated Press in a telephone interview that Donald P. Kelly, former chairman of Esmark (which was acquired by Beatrice last year), would be named chairman and chief executive.

Kelly, in his first public statement since being identified with the KKR group, told AP that he intended to keep Beatrice in its present form. He also said his management team would include three former Esmark managers: Frederick B. Rentschler, who will run the general food and beverage divisions; Joel Smilow, head of general non-food operations, and Roger T. Briggs, in charge of finances.

Beatrice observers, however, believe the new KKR company that will own Beatrice will begin selling off such major non-food businesses as Playtex to help reduce its high debt level.

Since Beatrice acquired Esmark for $2.7 billion in August, 1984, it has been shedding some of its less profitable non-food operations. In early October, it disclosed plans to put four more on the block, including it Avis and Danskin units.

The leveraged buy-out, in which investors purchase a company by borrowing heavily against the target company's assets as collateral, adds yet another layer of debt to the company's structure.

Observers have believed it was unlikely that Beatrice could remain independent once takeover rumors began inflating its stock. KKR first made a $45-a-share offer in mid-October that Beatrice's board rejected as "inadequate." Since July, Beatrice's stock has risen about 50%, and KKR's initial offer, although spurned, put pressure on Beatrice management to obtain a more attractive alternative.

Beatrice stock closed Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange at $46.25 a share, up 75 cents, and was the most active issue with a volume of 3.9 million shares.

KKR's lock-up options would allow it, under certain conditions, to purchase either Beatrice's grocery group and Tropicana subsidiary for $2.391 billion or Beatrice's Tropicana, meat, soft-drink and bottled water subsidiaries for $2.412 billion.

These businesses, which are considered among Beatrice's most desirable, include Hunt-Wesson Foods, Swift meats, Tropicana fruit juices, La Choy Chinese foods, Coca-Cola bottlers and Arrowhead bottled water.

The lock-up options, however, are clouded by the Delaware Supreme Court's recent ruling against Revlon's use of a similar defensive tactic to thwart a takeover by Pantry Pride.

Revlon had granted the investment firm of Forstmann, Little & Co. an option to buy two major Revlon divisions if an unwelcome suitor acquired 40% of Revlon's stock. The option, which Pantry Pride challenged, was designed to protect Forstmann's agreement to acquire all of Revlon's stock. After the court ruling, Revlon succumbed to the Pantry Pride takeover.

But analysts said KKR isn't likely to have competition for Beatrice, which has had only one other nibble, that from Dart Group Corp. of Landover, Md.

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Law Firms: Bingham McCutchen

Bingham McCutchen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  (Redirected from Bingham McCutchen LLP)

Bingham McCutchen LLP

Headquarters	One Federal Street Boston, Massachusetts
No. of offices	14
No. of attorneys	approximately 700
No. of employees	approximately 1,600
Major practice areas	Financial restructuring, securities, litigation, antitrust, private equity, corporate finance, government affairs
Key people	Jay S. Zimmerman (Chairman)[1]
Date founded	1891[2]
Company type	Limited Liability Partnership
Slogan	Legal insight. Business instinct.
Dissolved	2014
Website	Bingham.com

Bingham McCutchen LLP was a global law firm with approximately 850 attorneys in nine US offices and five international offices.^[3] It ceased operations in late 2014, when several hundred of its partners and associate lawyers left the firm to join Philadelphia based Morgan Lewis.^[4]

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1History
  • 1.1Collapse
• 2Offices
• 3Notable people
• 4References
• 5External links

History[edit]

Bingham, Dana & Gould was founded in Boston in 1891.^[5]

From 1997, the company experienced sharp growth in the number of attorneys, offices, and revenues by absorbing other law firms.^[2][6] In 1997, Bingham Dana acquired the 30-lawyer Japanese practice group of Marks & Murase, giving the firm offices in New York and Los Angeles and a strong base of Japanese institutional clients.^[7] The next outpost was established in Hartford through a merger with 55-lawyer Hebb & Gitlin, a firm that concentrated on international bankruptcy work. In 2001, Bingham Dana bulked up in New York City through a merger with Richards & O'Neill, a boutique law firm of 55 attorneys known for its litigation and corporate groups. The next year, in 2002, Bingham Dana merged with San Francisco-based law firm McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen to form 800-lawyer strong Bingham McCutchen. McCutchen Doyle brought five offices and a strong litigation and intellectual property focus. In 2003, the firm expanded in Southern California by merging with corporate boutique Riordan & McKinzie. More recently, 2006 saw a merger between Bingham McCutchen and Swidler Berlin Shereff Friedman, a Washington, D.C.-based firm which brought greater capabilities in the nation's capital as well as a strong regulatory group. Bingham also launched in Hong Kong that same year. In 2007, the firm acquired Los Angeles litigation shop Alschuler Grossman. In July 2009, Bingham McCutchen acquired McKee Nelson, a midsize law firm specializing in tax law and structured finance.^[8]

A team of Bingham attorneys and staff, led by Susan Baker Manning and Sabin Willett, represented pro bono a dozen Uighur men held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.^{[9][10][11][12][13]} Bingham filed and extensively litigated numerous habeas corpus cases on behalf of their Uighur clients, as well as cases under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 that brought to light serious evidentiary and procedural flaws in the 2004-05 Combatant Status Review Tribunals that were used to justify the Uighurs' ongoing imprisonment. All Bingham clients were subsequently released.

The Tokyo office of Bingham McCutchen became one of the largest law firms in Japan by its 2007 merger with a domestic law firm headed by Hideyuki Sakai, a top insolvency specialist. Unlike most foreign firms in Japan which have minimal domestic practices, Bingham's Tokyo office was predominantly staffed by Japanese attorneys and handled domestic matters such as the restructuring of Olympus Corporation, although it hired a number of foreign attorneys since 2012 in an attempt to strengthen its outbound and cross-border practice and to expand in other legal fields such as intellectual property and investment funds.^[14]

Despite a deep recession which hurt law firms nationwide, the Boston Globe reported that Bingham performed very well financially.^[15] In 2009, Bingham's gross revenues increased 12% and profits per partner increased 2%. Chairman Jay Zimmerman was quoted as saying "We’ve had our best year ever." However, despite an increase in revenues, Bingham froze salaries, and in March 2009 laid off 16 attorneys and 29 support staff.^[16]

Collapse[edit]

Bingham experienced internal tensions following the 2002 McCutchen merger, and again following the 2009 McKee merger. Both transactions were viewed as "mergers of equals" among some insiders, and as unequal acquisitions among others. The McKee transaction involved large compensation guarantees to several key McKee partners which were not immediately disclosed to other Bingham partners. The legacy McKee partners continued to earn relatively high compensation following the acquisition due to the fact that they charged higher hourly rates than the legacy Bingham partners; the legacy Bingham partners nonetheless demanded salary matching, which strained the profits of the firm.^[17]

Bingham experienced a massive downsizing from 2012 to 2014, during which time it cut 225 lawyers and saw more than fifty partners leave the firm. Two major cases—the Deepwater Horizon litigation and an IP dispute involving Oracle Corporation—ended abruptly, reducing the firm's revenue.^[5] Bingham attempted to cut costs by moving back office functions to a new center in Kentucky, but the initial cost of the move ($100,000 per equity partner) hurt the firm's 2014 financial results even further.^[18] After Bingham's collapse, it was revealed that Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance stopped working with Bingham due to the low level of racial diversity among its partners in Boston and Hartford.^[19]

In November 2014, 227 of around 300 partners and a similar number of associates joined the Philadelphia-based firm of Morgan Lewis & Bockius.^[20] Morgan Lewis paid off Bingham's debt as part of the deal,^[21] and shut down Bingham's Kentucky operations center, relocating some employees to Philadelphia.^[18]

Bingham's London and Frankfurt offices joined Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.^[22] 50 of Bingham's 60 lawyers in Tokyo moved to the Japanese law firm of Anderson Mori & Tomotsune, with the remainder joining Morgan Lewis.^[23]

Offices[edit]

As of 2014, Bingham McCutchen had offices in Beijing, Boston, Hartford, Hong Kong, Lexington, London, Los Angeles, New York, Orange County, San Francisco, Santa Monica, California, Silicon Valley, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C.^[3] It also offered consulting services through subsidiaries Bingham Consulting and Bingham Strategic Advisors.^[2]

Notable people[edit]

• Denise Jefferson Casper (judge, United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts)
• Christopher Cox (former Chairman, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and former U.S. Representative)
• Barry Goode (retired from the firm in 2001 to join state government, and now is a Contra Costa County judge)
• Thurgood Marshall, Jr. (former Clinton White House Cabinet Secretary)
• Steve Merrill (former Governor of New Hampshire)
• Richard Riordan (former Mayor of Los Angeles)
• Josiah Spaulding
• Sabin Willett
• Pete Wilson (former Governor of California and former U.S. Senator)

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