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WitHout reCourse: Harvey, tHe real estate laWyer
purchased (actually, financed) and packaged under unrelenting pressure. I also calculate that all of that pressure was only once relieved by some real humor, albeit with irony: I was called late one Friday after- noon to tell me to assemble a team that would meet in the morning two days later to negotiate with an attorney and his client who would be arriving in New York from Oklahoma City late on Saturday. And meet we did, starting at 10:00 the next day. The attorney, John Hastie, accom- panied by a very attractive and expensively dressed woman, whom he referred to as his “paraprofessional,” arrived on time and announced that his client would come later but that we should proceed in his absence. Hastie was wearing a handsome blazer and what I believe was a Rolex watch, the dial of which was completely encircled by diamonds; he was also wearing a diamond pinkie ring. While the paraprofessional was sitting very quietly in the corner of the conference room but never- theless drawing a fair amount of attention from a number of the lawyers, Hastie said that they had flown in on his own jet but that his client was
going to be coming later; he was traveling commercially.
He then said that he felt constrained to make some disclosures before we got down to business. Hastie said that he had a 40-percent interest in the Oklahoma Tower, the office building that was the subject of the transaction; that his law firm, of which he was the senior partner, was a tenant leasing four of the floors; that an oil company that occupied six floors was a major client of his firm (he had an interest in the oil company as well); and that he owned one-half of the common stock of a company that occupied another two floors. Finally, he was on the board of, and held a substantial minority interest in, the bank that held the first mortgage. “Any questions, Mr. Yaverbaum?” I let this all sink in, furrowed my brow, and said yes. “And what would that be?” asked he. I kept a straight face, looked him straight in the eye, and asked, somewhat in awe, “Why in the world are you working on a Sunday?” (We got along famously, and I was delighted to repeat the story—dropping the part about the paraprofessional—when he had me speak about the RTC at an American Law Institute–American Bar Association meeting that he
was chairing at the University of Virginia Law School.) • 441 •