On our recent trip up to New York, we dropped by the Orion — the luxury high-rise apartment building that celebrated plaintiff Aaron Charney calls home. We previously profiled Aaron’s apartment in these pages, for our Lawyerly Lairs column.
We briefly entertained the thought of entering the building, going up to the reception desk, and telling the doorman we were here to see Aaron Charney. Maybe he would then invite us up for a visit, and we could check out the extensive collection of parental photographs decorating his pad.
But then we thought that such an action might put us on the receiving end of a temporary restraining order. And Aaron is no stranger to TRO practice, having been slapped with one by Sullivan & Cromwell earlier this month.
So we just loitered outside the building for a while, and took a few photographs. Here they are:
More pics after the jump.
In Lawyerly Lairs, a recurring ATL feature, we check out the luxurious homes of prominent figures within the legal profession. If you share our addiction to real estate porn, this is a column you’re sure to enjoy.
In recent editions of Lawyerly Lairs, we’ve visited a $2.8 million mansion in Cambridge, MA, home to celebrity law professors Noah Feldman and Jeannie Suk (“Feldsuk”); a $20 million Park Avenue pad, recently sold by Cravath partner John Beerbower; and a $29 million townhouse, owned by Columbia Law professor Hans Smit (and resided in by his son, Simpson Thacher partner Robert Smit).
Today we look at a residence which, while not as lavish as these spreads, should still be of great interest to ATL readers. It’s the Hell’s Kitchen apartment of celebrity litigant Aaron Charney. It’s in a high-rise, luxury condominum building called the Orion (pictured at right).
Join us after the jump, won’t you?
Of course they do. Debevoise & Plimpton paid generous bonuses in 2006. And they went along with the latest pay raises, with scarcely any hesitation.
So we can’t help wondering:
Then again, this roommate situation isn’t the typical set-up of two post-college kids throwing up a sheetrock wall in a 500-square-foot one bedroom. It’s an amazing apartment on Lower Broadway, a sprawling loft with high ceilings and great furniture — courtesy of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” on which Berman once appeared (even though he’s actually gay).
Jeff Berman went into this roommate arrangement not knowing for certain whether it would work out. Per the New York Times:
For Mr. Berman, a young lawyer who had met Ms. [Lauren] Reece — then Billy — at a bar in Chelsea two years before, moving in with a transsexual required a leap of faith. He was worried that a host of changes, physical as well as psychological, would make the perky Ms. Reece “a bit unstable.”
As it turns out, domestic tranquillity reigns. The two roommates could pass for a suburban couple: Mr. Berman, 26, in workout pants and a T-shirt, Ms. Reece, 28, in a pink cardigan and pearl necklace.
Aww… Isn’t that cute?
But look, even if Lauren Reece has turned out to be a total head case, Jeffrey Berman might still have wanted to move in. Why? As everyone knows, space-deprived Manhattanites are sluts for square footage. Who wouldn’t room with someone “a bit unstable” — heck, aren’t we all — in exchange for 1,400 square feet and 14-foot ceilings?
Hell, we’d move in with a transsexual PROSTITUTE if he/she had a pad that fabulous. Give us earplugs and some hand sanitizer, and we’re good to go. Update: Yes, this post has been tweaked slightly since its original incarnation. In the Right Place at the Right Time [New York Times] Jeffrey C. Berman [Debevoise & Plimpton]
The whole point of being a mono-monikered celebrity entity is that you get covered, and covered, and covered by the media. This coverage continues, long after the public claims to be sick of you and cries out for mercy.
But really they’re not sick of you. This is why Brangelina still moves magazines.
As for the Brangelina of the legal academy, Harvard Law profs Noah Feldman and Jeannie Suk, the jury is still out on what to call them. To vote in our nickname poll, click here.
But we DO know what to call the good professors’ recently acquired, $2.8 million house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Coldwell Banker has some suggestions: “Imposing,” “lovely,” “magnificent,” and “exceptional.”
We agree. Check it out:
If this reader comment is correct — and it appears to be, since various details match up with the New York Observer article (an 1873 Victorian with five fireplaces and a pool) — Professors Feldman and Suk will be taking up residence in the shown above. As you can see, it’s one nice pile o’ bricks.
Sometimes real estate listings get pulled after outside websites link to them. We hate it when that happens.
To preserve this information for posterity, we took a screencap of the original property listing. Check it out, after the jump.
We have, on multipleoccasions, shot envious glares in the direction of celebrity law professors Noah Feldman and Jeannie Suk. They’re brilliant; they’re beautiful; they’re members of the Elect (former Souter clerks).
What more could one ask for? We can think of only two things.
First, a one-word, neologistic nickname. From this point forward, Noah Feldman and Jeannie Suk will be referred to in these pages as Noajeannie.
Second, a multimillion-dollar mansion. Oh wait — they already have one. From an article by Anna Schneider-Mayerson in the New York Observer:*
If Mr. Feldman’s announcement [of his move from NYU to Harvard Law School] is only two weeks old, it’s not because he’s immune to the charms of Harvard Square.
The Middlesex South Registry of Deeds lists Noah Feldman and Jeannie Suk as the buyers of a house in Cambridge for $2.8 million. According to city records, the 1873 Victorian home has a pool, nine bedrooms and five fireplaces.
An antique home with a swimming pool — and nine bedrooms? This is a rare find.
Not many legal academics can afford a $3 million house. But then again, not many legal academics are Noajeannie. Update: Actually, we’re going to let you vote on the best nickname for Noah and Jeannie. To access the poll, click here.
P.S. If you have pictures or information about Noajeannie’s new Cambridge home or their fabulous New York apartment, please send it our way.
* We realize the Observer piece is a little old. It came out during the dead period between Christmas and New Year’s, which is why we missed it. But we’re glad we found it, since it’s full of juicy tidbits. Read it in its entirety here. What’s That Suck? Harvard Law School Raids Noah Feldman [New York Observer] The Latest Triumphs of the Elect: It’s Good to Be Noah and Jeannie! [UTR] Earlier: Musical Chairs: Professor Noah Feldman Is Leaving NYU for Harvard!
Here’s an addendum to our earlier coverage of the lavish, multimillion dollar residence(s) of John Beerbower, a litigation partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. John and Cynthia Beerbower lived in a $20 million apartment in 720 Park Avenue (at right), then “downsized” to a $5.1 million pad.
From David Hoffman, a former Cravath associate, over at Concurring Opinions:
David Lat offers this post about a Cravath partner’s recent real estate sale. David makes some hay about a supposed tax break that made the sale even more profitable.
John Beerbower, the partner in question, was the lead attorney at Cravath on a recently resolved pro bono suit on behalf of the City of New York that resulted in a tax refund of $280,000,000 for New York’s police, firefighters, and sanitation workers injured in the line of duty. The refund resulting from the suit was the second largest in NYC history.
Excellent. It’s nice to know that Mr. Beerbower — whom Dave Hoffman describes as “a terrific lawyer and a wonderful person” — favors tax relief not just for Park Avenue tycoons, but for the “little people,” too.
Professor Hoffman confirms our speculation that the Beerbowers hosted lavish Cravath summer associate affairs in their former apartment at 720 Park Avenue. He also provides additional information about its interior, available in the full post .
We thank Professor Hoffman for so menschily supplementing our prior write-up. David Lat Misses a Trick [Concurring Opinions] Earlier: Lawyerly Lairs: Tax Breaks for Cravath Partners?
This super-luxurious, prewar building — 720 Park Avenue, one of New York’s most prestigious addresses — is the former home of Cravath partner John Beerbower, and his wife, Cynthia Beerbower. In case you’re wondering, they lived in apartment 7A.
According to Steven Gaines in The Sky’s the Limit (2005), winning admission to this exclusive coop requires a net worth of at least $50 million. Financier Henry Grunwald and Revlon exec Michael Bergerac call it home.
But despite the vast wealth of its residents, 720 Park receives highly favorable tax treatment from New York City:
The New York Times looked at the vagaries of the tax laws — a result of several decades of political compromises — through the uncommonly low taxes paid at 720 Park, which is at 70th Street, and other Upper East Side co-ops. It found that some owners of small two-family brick and shingle houses near Kennedy International Airport paid three times the effective tax rate as their Park Avenue peers.
In the last year, while property tax assessments across the city rose by more than 9 percent, the assessors reviewed 720 Park. But rather than raising taxes on the building, they reduced them. City records show the official market value of the building and the tax burden on it were cut by 12 percent.
Property taxes on 720 Park went DOWN? How on earth did that happen?
Find out the answer, plus information about the Beerbowers’ new home, after the jump.
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, soon to be crowned the state’s next governor, has a very wealthy — and very generous — father. Bernard Spitzer, a real estate mogul worth some $500 million, provides his 47-year-old son with free housing.
In Manhattan. On the Upper East Side. On Fifth Avenue. From TaxProf Blog:
Spitzer has lived rent-free with his family at 985 Fifth Ave. for 13 years. The 25-story tower off 79th St. has just two apartments per floor and terraces that look down at the Metropolitan Museum of Art….
Thanks to his dad’s generosity, Spitzer, his wife and three daughters have lived in a home graced with at least three bedrooms, four baths, a balcony, library and sweeping vistas of Central Park….
Vetted by lawyers and accountants, the living arrangement is both lawful and proper, said Darren Dopp, Spitzer’s communications director: The father pays an annual gift tax on the present he gives his son….
The market value of the gift is reported annually on real estate tax filings and on Bernard Spitzer’s tax returns. But citing privacy, Dopp declined to disclose the apartment’s rent, the gift’s value or the amount of the gift tax paid. Three real estate brokers familiar with the building say that a spread of comparable size could lease for $16,000 to $20,000 a month. That puts the gift’s current value at an estimated $192,000 to $240,000 a year.
The Daily News makes 985 Fifth Avenue sound like one of New York’s finest apartment houses. And an annual gift of free rent worth almost a quarter of a million dollars is nothing to scoff at. After all, Fifth Avenue is Fifth Avenue.
But if you’ll allow us to nitpick, nobody would mistake 985 Fifth Avenue for one of the avenue’s “best” buildings (e.g., 820 Fifth Avenue, 834 Fifth Avenue). After all, nine-eighty-five did not make Tom Wolfe’s 1985 list of “Good Buildings” — and this should come as no surprise. It’s not a co-op, but a rental building; it’s not prewar, but from 1968 (a dubious year for residential architecture); and it’s made of yellow brick, not limestone (or even red brick).
How can Eliot Spitzer stand to live in such a déclassé building? Now his disturbingly fervent hunger for the governor’s mansion makes perfect sense.
Of course, there are other lawyers who receive even grander parental largesse on the real estate front. For example, Robert Smit — a partner at Simpson Thacher, where profits per partner averaged $2.37 million in 2005 — lives with his family in his dad’s $29 million mansion. (We assume he lives there for free, but haven’t verified this; if you know, please let us know.) Eliot Spitzer and the Gift Tax [TaxProf Blog] Empire of the Son: Spitzer reaps fortune from dad’s real estate smarts [New York Daily News] 985 Fifth Avenue [The Upper East Side Book] Earlier: Lawyerly Lairs: Professor Smit’s Uptown Mansion
Situated on two lots measuring approx. 2.5 usable acres this totally private and gated tennis court and equestrian estate is a paradise of its own. The home measures approx. 10,000 sq. ft. with 7 Bedrooms & 7 Bathrooms, extraordinary kitchen and a spectacular great room. The master has 2 large baths and walk-in closets with incredible views of the grounds which include enormous lawns, tennis court and pool. Across a bridge over its own year-round stream one will find a full orchard with plums.
The increased sales price reflects, in part, the additional 3,000 square feet of outdoor marble terraces added by the Loggans family.
Loggans is famous for litigation, but more often as a party than as an attorney. She sued the previous owner of her California home, an Austrian-American movie star named Arnold Schwarzenegger, calling the property a “nightmare.” One looks forward to the transfer disclosure statement Loggans will provide the lucky buyer. The Loggans-Schwarzenegger result is confidential, but Loggans had no luck in a lawsuit over a different real estate transaction; Chad Rogers (who works for Paris Hilton’s father) won $746,098.85 from Loggans over an allegedly unpaid commission and associated attorneys’ fees for an earlier sale of a Malibu beachfront home. 14209 Evans Road property listing [Realtor.com] 14209 Evans Road [Google Map] Pumping Up Arnold’s House [Wall Street Journal ($)] Arbitration demand: Loggans v. Schwarzenegger [The Smoking Gun] “‘Schwarzenegger sold us a mouldy home for $8m’” [Telegraph (UK)] “Paris Hilton’s Daddy Scores Big in the Los Angeles Superior Court” [press release] Pricey Real Estate & the Law[WSJ Law Blog] Susan Loggans web site
Yesterday we put out a call for submissions for Lawyerly Lairs. We look forward to your responses. In the meantime, here’s some real estate porn that we were able to obtain on our own — since the property in question is for sale.
The Schinasi Mansion is the only freestanding single-family mansion in Manhattan. It dates back to 1909, boasts 12,000 square feet of living space, and sits on swanky Riverside Drive. It is currently on the market for an eye-popping $29,000,000.
Here’s a shot of its French Renaissance, white marble exterior:
So who owns this Mother of All Townhouses? A senior partner at a top Biglaw firm — who also married very well? An ex-lawyer who left for the world of finance, to become a managing director at an investment bank or a partner at a successful hedge fund? Actually, no. The $29 million mansion is owned by — brace yourselves, people — a legal academic. It’s home to Professor Hans Smit (at right), who teaches civil procedure and international law at Colubmia. Guess those private law school salaries must be pretty good!
Actually, there’s a backstory — and no, Professor Smit didn’t win the $315 million Mega Millions jackpot. Check out the details, as well as more drool-worthy pictures, after the jump.
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We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
• 2nd to 5th year mandarin fluent M&A associates needed in Beijing and Hong Kong at several firms;
• Korean fluent 2nd to 4th year cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 5th year Japanese fluent M&A associates needed in Tokyo;
• 4th to 6th year mandarin fluent cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 4th year M&A / cap markets mix associate needed in Singapore.
The last time I flapped my wings your way, I tried to make at least enough noise about your mobile phone to make you more than a little bit uncomfortable. I hope I did. If enough of us become anxious enough about the known and unknown unknowns and knowns in our mobile phones, then we can start making wise decisions about how to manage that information and its resultant investigations.
Today, I’d like to put a finer point on the last installment’s topic by asking a question that seemed to catch most attendees off-guard at a conference panel that I moderated last week: is there discoverable personal information in a mobile app? Our panelists’ answer was a uniform “yes” with one stating that, if he had to choose only one type of data that he could discover from a mobile phone, he’d choose app data. Why? Because there’s simply so much of it and because almost all of it is objective – not just user-created like an email – but machine-tracked like GPS, usage duration, log in and log out times, browsed web addresses, browsed actual addresses. Also, most of us seem to have the idea that data doesn’t actually “stick” to our mobile devices the way it “sticks” to our hard drives. Maybe there’s a disconnect based on the fact that our phones are mobile so we assume the data is mobile to?
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