Page 644 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
not survive. Lehman failed because of the collapse of the “subprime” mortgage market that followed upon the collapse of the U.S. housing market. It also failed because it was even more overleveraged than the hunting and fishing club transaction.
I chose to talk about the hunting and fishing club because it was one of my last major transactions, and because the attitudes underlying it were emblematic of the attitudes that brought down not only Lehman but the entire economy, both domestic and worldwide. On September 15, 2008, Lehman filed for what remains the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, and with its filing, many say, the by-then-inevitable Great Recession of 2008 began in earnest.
You will recall that, well before the Lehman bankruptcy, I had tar- geted August 29, 2008, as my retirement date. I kept my promise to myself, and a few weeks after a wonderful party held in a private room in a midtown restaurant (my second Rosenman retirement party), I left the office on the promised date—and never looked back.
The timing could not have been better. With the Lehman bank- ruptcy, the entire real estate economy (and much of everything else) came to an abrupt halt approximately two weeks after my last day at 575 Madison. Had I stayed at the firm, which I was entitled to do for at least two more years, I would have had virtually nothing to do for that entire time (other than depositing paychecks), and there is little in the world that is more difficult than sitting in an office and staring out the window.
The timing was good for another reason. I had done just about everything that a practitioner of real estate law could have done. There was virtually nothing in real estate that I had not encountered, and, short of being a sitting judge, there was no professional role that I had not assumed: I had worked for law firms, served as a general counsel, and taken an active, and, to me, important, role in government service. I had taught young lawyers as much as I could about the transactions that they might encounter and the techniques that they would be asked to employ.
As I’ve said, just as learning new things had always been important to me, teaching others had given me a great deal of pleasure. So, starting
• 626 •