In a post from last week, we solicited your tips about two major players in the Charney v. S&C saga:
(1) litigation partner Gandolfo “Vince” DiBlasi, who allegedly intimidated Aaron Charney at a settlement meeting; and
(2) M&A partner Stephen Kotran, cited by Aaron Charney as an ally of his at the firm.
The post generated lots of comments, plus a few reader emails. We collect the highlights after the jump.
Continue reading “Brokeback Lawfirm: More on Vince DiBlasi and Steve Kotran”
We’re glad to see that our last post on Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell — concerning Gandolfo “Vince” DiBlasi’s alleged boast that S&C “defended the Nazis,” and would “crush [Charney] like a bug” — gave rise to such a comment clusterf**k lively reader discussion.
This raises the question (which has already surfaced in the comments):
Is there any truth to this allegation?
We have emailed Vince DiBlasi (near right, glasses) with a request for comment. But we doubt he’ll get back to us.
So to figure out whether he actually said these things, we hereby request some character evidence — from you, our readers. If you have any firsthand information about DiBlasi — what he’s like as a person, as a boss, as an adversary — please email us (subject line: “Vince DiBlasi”).
Now, we’ve written a fair amount about alleged “villains” at S&C — in addition to DiBlasi, M&A partners Alexandra Korry and Eric Krautheimer. But now we’d like to hear about a “good guy.” A tipster wrote to us:
The S&C partner you should be soliciting info on is not Krautheimer or Korry but STEVE KOTRAN. Stephen Kotran [far right, no glasses] is by far the most fascinating character in this story. After all, Charney’s initial complaint makes clear that at every phase Kotran bucked the system (refused to do what his partners wanted him to do) in order to do what he felt was right.
This is storybook shit! How many partners at top-tier law firms are made of such stuff? I, for one, would love to know more about the man who appears to be the lone hero of this story.
And so would we. If you have inside info about Mr. Kotran, please email us (subject line: Stephen Kotran).
We thank you in advance for your thoughts on Messrs. DiBlasi and Kotran — and we look forward to reading them.
Stephen M. Kotran bio [Sullivan & Cromwell]
Gandolfo V. DiBlasi bio [Sullivan & Cromwell]
This post picks up where our last one left off, in a page-by-page review of Sullivan & Cromwell’s Complaint (PDF) in S&C v. Charney. Our earlier thoughts are available here.
Now we’re up to the juiciest part: Paragraph 19. This paragraph concerns a certain confidential, internal firm document, which was leaked to the Wall Street Journal (previously discussed here).
S&C’s Complaint notes that a copy of this document (1) “is missing from [a] partner’s file”; (2) that the partner’s file “appears to have been put out of order”; and (3) that the partner in question had her office “next door to Charney’s office.”
You do the math.
Paragraph 19 also notes that the WSJ Law Blog, in writing about the leaked document, quotes from a handwritten note that was attached to the partner’s missing copy of the document. Charney also quoted from this same handwritten note, in Paragraph 63 of his Complaint. Ruh-Roh…
More after the jump.
Continue reading “Sullivan & Cromwell v. Charney: Some Thoughts on the S&C Complaint (Part 2)”
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
Keep reading »
In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?
First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
Keep reading »
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