Profiles of Individuals
A Conversation with Herb Thomas
As most readers know, one of the irregular—but always popular—kinds of columns we publish are in the form of interviews with people who pass our rigorous 10-point test are intrinsically interesting. Recently I had the luck to get to know Herb Thomas, who immediately lured me in by saying he had once printed out much
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A Conversation with Jim Rishwain
Last week I had the chance to sit down with Jim Rishwain, the Chair of Pillsbury, in their New York office just off Times Square. He’s been chair since May 1, 2006, following the high-profile Mary Cranston, and when he assumed the role six years ago it had not been all that long since Pillsbury,
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In re: Passion
Dogs bark. Birds sing. Snakes bite. Lawyers sue. Or is there more to it than that? I’m referring to the series of class action lawsuits being brought against law schools claiming they systematically misled students/applicants about such presumably material things as very high post-graduation employment rates; the underlying cause of action is consumer fraud. Adam
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Fresh From Page Six
I don’t ordinarily write about ethical transgressions or semi-sordid tales of malfeasance among people more often found on the New York Post’s Page 6 than in the Times or the Journal, but here we have a cautionary tale that, I fear, may hold a slightly larger lesson for us all. I refer to the cover
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Joe Flom, 1923-2011
We’ve all heard the sad news that Joe Flom died Wednesday at age 87. (WSJ, The American Lawyer, The New York Times, DealBook) Over 20 years ago, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of The American Lawyer, Steve Brill wrote a profile of Joe, and necessarily of Skadden, that is shockingly fresh and new today.
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The Man In the Grey Flannel Suit
The phrase “an American original” may strike you as overused, and I might agree, but I’d have to limit it to the narrow sense in which it may be applied to more people than deserve it. In other words, there aren’t enough of them. But today, we have a genuine contender: Jerry Della Femina, the
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A Conversation with Howard Altarescu
Last week I had a chance to sit down with Howard Altarescu of Orrick, who I felt compelled to get to know better when he was the first, and still the only, person to know the answer to a question I like to pose, whenever I have the chance, to groups of lawyers discussing business
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A Conversation with Tomasz Wardynski
Last week I had a chance to sit down with Tomasz Wardynski, founding partner of Wardynski & Partners, based in Warsaw, which is now a firm of close to 250 people including 137 lawyers with 22 partners, of whom 9 are equity and 13 are salaried or limited partners. I was looking for perspective on
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A Conversation with Jay Zimmerman
I recently had the chance to sit down with Jay Zimmerman, Chairman of Bingham, to discuss the changes he’s seen over his career, and to talk about the future of the legal industry and Bingham. Herewith a synopsis. Jay (Harvard, Harvard Law) started his career in New York at Debevoise, but within a couple of
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A Conversation with Allen Fagin
Last week I had the opportunity to sit down with Allen Fagin, Chairman of Proskauer Rose. Allen is Columbia BA summa cum laude, and Harvard Law JD cum laude at the same time he earned an MPP from Harvard’s JFK School of Government. He’s worked at Proskauer for his entire career, and comes from the
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