Page 444 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
can see that there was an incredible amount to be learned merely by participating in the original, “structuring” meetings. But I did a lot more than that: I, an associate with about one year’s experience in the Real Estate Department, was present for and participated actively in every meeting; I was responsible for analyzing the underlying documents, including the “Straddle Agreement” (which is explained in the most recent footnote), and drafting the key partnership documents and the documents that triggered the initial conveyance of the properties. I went over ever nuance and contingency, not just with Flora and Portman’s key representative in New York but also with Portman himself.
Flora and I flew to Atlanta for a meeting in which the deal had to be fully explained to Portman and his very sophisticated and tough staff, and then we closed and lived the transaction until we failed to obtain sufficient financing. (The highlight of the Atlanta trip came when, because we were unexpectedly asked to stay the night, Portman’s secre- tary, Judy Honeycutt, was entrusted with the job of obtaining toiletries and a change of underwear for me. She returned from her shopping trip with something that I had never worn before, as it would have been death to have done so in Brooklyn or camp: a pair of boxer shorts. Brook- lyn boys wore tight Jockey shorts; Jeff Kittay, you’ll recall, favored BVDs. Ms. Honeycutt must have detected my surprise when I opened the package, for she sheepishly asked me whether she had purchased the wrong size. I took that as a compliment, albeit one that was feigned.)
To give you some idea of the quality of the attorneys involved: The key lawyers at Marshall Bratter were Donald Siskind, whom we will meet again in 1982, when he brings twenty-five other attorneys (Greene included) from his firm to Rosenman to give it what was at the time the most powerful real estate department in the City (Rosenman had about fifteen real estate attorneys of its own when the Marshall Bratter merger occurred); Siskind’s second in command, Ben Needell, who went on to
as condemnation or destruction of all or a portion of the hotel, litigation, management, etc. It was a document, then in draft seventeen, with which no real estate lawyer with whom I dealt subsequently had the slightest familiarity.
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