Page 448 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
career, at least until I was at the RTC. It was heady because I felt that this project, more than any other in which I had been involved, was con- ceived to do more than merely succeed commercially; if things went well—as it turned out, they did—the hotel would change the map and the Times Square area for the better. It was also heady because I, a kid from Brooklyn with absolutely no experience with capitalism prior to becoming an attorney, found myself negotiating—successfully, I thought—concerning a plethora (to steal a term from ¡Three Amigos!) of commercial and accounting concepts for and against an army of very sophisticated people, with hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dol- lars ultimately at stake.
There were many highlights, lowlights, and sidelights of the trans- action, of which I’ll mention a few, particularly some that related to opposing and, in some cases, extremely arrogant attorneys and some that were brought about, both humorously and theatrically, by the polit- ical concerns of New York City officials.
I found myself negotiating against an army of attorneys, never fewer than five at a time, from Weil Gotshal & Manges, a very powerful New York City–based firm, which represented UDC. Those five or more law- yers appeared at all meetings with two attorneys from the office of the New York City Corporation Counsel, two attorneys from the UDC, and one principal from each of the PDC and the UDC. (I, by then a partner, worked with one, very bright, young associate at my side.) Weil Gotshal had already earned a particular place of contempt from me because, when I was a third-year law student writing to every major firm in town in order secure an interview for a position, they had not even deigned to reply to me with a form rejection letter. (When I was ultimately in charge of hiring at Rosenman, I made sure that each of the hundreds of pieces of correspondence from applicants received a response.)
The attorneys from Weil Gotshal were all very self-important and, at least at the beginning, quite stiff and formal, playing the lawyer part to the hilt. Each morning session at Weil’s offices in the General Motors Building was accompanied by bagels, lox, pastries, and coffee, all served on china by white-gloved attendants. It was extremely unusual, was pre-
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