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CroWninG aCHieveMent: Harvey, tHe General Counsel
lenders, and the New York State Attorney General’s Office (which was very much involved with the offering statements that were used in the conversion process); and work with and oversee the work of a handful of law firms, Schulte Roth & Zabel and Herrick Feinstein among them. In addition, that attorney would head up and manage the Legal Depart- ment and hire two more attorneys, so that they would combine with two that were on hand (his useless nephew, Mitchell Gordon, and a man named Warner Norton, who had been with him since the IFC days) to handle all of the work on the horizon. (Norman did not refer to Mitchell as useless; I was to learn that on my own later. I also later learned that Warner, who stood about six-six, who was a gentle giant of limited, but useful, abilities, and who was a very nice guy with whom I had excellent relations, had been indicted along with Norman at the time of the Fort Lee bribery scandal. I don’t know, but I doubt that he remained a target for long. He certainly never served time. I later realized that Norman used Warner for transactions that he did not want me to be involved in.)
I would begin at a salary well in excess of my projected annual earn- ings at Rosenman, and the sky was the limit! When could I start?
I was sold, and I told him that I had to wrap up some things at Rosenman and that I’d be delighted to take the position and start right after Labor Day. This was exciting and new stuff, and I wanted to be around for the ride.
Doing It
So it was that I did what was, to many, unthinkable. I resigned from the partnership, from a position that had taken me eight years to earn at the prestigious Rosenman firm, where I had by then worked for seventeen years. And I did so while my family life was turning upside down and the negotiations with Phyllis were up in the air.
Having taken the Rocking Chair Test and deciding not to let the opportunity pass me by, I did start right after Labor Day, meeting with Guterman on what seemed like the first day that I was on the job. In
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