We’re an international law firm headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Silicon Valley, Hong Kong, Seattle, Los Angeles, Anchorage, Singapore (near the equator), Washington, D.C., San Diego, New York City, Madison, Wisconsin, Bejing (where the Olympics were held), London (where the next Olympics are going to be held), and Shangahi (China I think).
We specialize in: Antitrust & Trade Regulation, Appeals & Litigation Strategy, Asia, Capital Markets, Compensation & Benefits, Consumer Litigation– i.e., ambulance chasin’, Corporate Governance & Chaos, Corporate Securities, Debt Finance, Energy, Energy & Clean Technologies, Environmental Litigation & Counseling, FDA, Hospitality, Information Technology and Electronic Identity Theft, Insurance Recovery, Intellectual Property Litigation, Intellectual Property Transactions, International Law, International Arbitration & ADR—more fees cause we always go to court , Labor & Employment & Unemployment, Life Sciences, Mergers & Acquisitions, Money-laundering, Patents & Trademarks but not copyrights, Private Equity & Fund Formation & Deformation, Product Liability, Project Finance, Real Estate, Restructuring & Insolvency, Securities Litigation, Structured Finance, Unstructured Finance, Tax Law, Taxi Law, Venture Law, Wealth Management— once we’ve got your money, White Collar Criminal Defense and that sorta stuff.
Besides the fact a buyer would get [639], A+ personality lawyers to join their TEAM, we’re recognized as one of the preeminent breeding grounds for TOP lawyers looking to move to TOP law firms like Orrick, Milbank, Goodwin Proctor, etcetera. Just in the last year or so those firms and others have cherry picked hired over thirty top earning Heller Ehrman partners. “Whoops! Cecilia do you have any Whiteout? I forgot I wasn’t supposed to mention the name of the firm in the ad. Thanks sweetie…”
We give heavily to the Democrat party (go Osama!!) and so we have many political favors a buyer could call in. So that’s a big plus in our column.
The Venture Law merger messed us up bad. One of their associates, Marcia Bruggeman-Hatch went Infaligrante at the Ritz, and had sex with her bi-sexual boyfriend over there in the “executive conference facilities“– did I mention that we’re a big supporter of same sex marriages cause that’ll generate more fees for lawyers cause it expands the addressable market for divorces… that’s what our business development guys told me to put in here. So that’s a plus in our column.
BTW- if you want her photos from their “inspection of the executive conference facilities at the Ritz,” we can talk about that with Ms. Buggerdman… “Cecilia: I need the Whiteout again. Thanks! You’ve got your handbag. Are you going for your ‘nooner’ with Seamus? Which conference room are you in? I’m gettin’ my nails done at three for my date with Frank tonight. So if you aren’t back by then I’ll see ya tomorrow..” Bruggeman-Hatch. Obviously her photos will cost ya more than his cause her’s are a lot racier. But we recovered from that. So that’s another plus in our column.
They “hired” a big time mouth piece. Miles Ehrlich Esquire. Superman cloaked as a “roley- poley,” trial lawyer. Turns out that Goodwin guy, who says we helped steal all of the assets of his company, Barra Partners, and that we breached our fiduciary duties, etcetera had reported the narcotics trafficking, bribery, money laundering, fraud and other criminal stuff to Mr. Ehrlich, on May 9, 2005 while he was the head of the White Collar Crime Division at the U.S. Attorney’s office in San Francisco. We were trying to keep it a secret that Mr. Ehrlich is Ms. Bruggeman-Hatch’s criminal defense attorney but somebody must have let it slip. But Mr. Ehrlich gave money to Osama too so maybe he’ll get one of them “your excused” letters signed by the President that rich guys get when they give gobs of money to build a library… “my brother-in-law could sure use one of them but he hasn’t got any money so he’ll have to stay in prison a few more years.” If roly-poly Superman can’t get that Goodwin guy to shut up then I’ll bet Ms. Bruggeman-Hatch’s narcotics trafficking guy will. It costs a lot to bribe an Assistant U.S. Attorney. So that’s a BIG PLUS in our column.
Believin’ the bulls on Wall Street wouldn’t stop running …”guess Wall Street’s like that place in Spain where they have bull races… their version of NASCAR..”. we overstaffed and overpaid our partners. Unfortunately, the mortgage mess those greedy Wall Street investment bankers caused, has pinched us too. Our fees from stock deals have plummeted cause of them. And as a result most of our partners have seen the value of their houses in Marin County and Palm Springs and Napa Valley and Santa Barbara go way down. Some of em’ even have mortgages. Yeah they got gored. But it will all come back– it’s a cycle ya know. So we delayed the start date for new associates until January… 2009 or 2010. Don’t remember which. Savin’ money! So that’s a plus in our column.
Did I mention there’s the possibility of a teensy weensy anti-trust suit against the firm for entering into a secret agreement with other law firms not to sue each other for malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and stuff like that? But the possibility of an anti-trust suit or even an investigation is nil because we spend big bucks “donating” to political parties and politicians, not to mention, the head of the Disciplinary Committee of the State Bar of California is friends with some of the folks here and they know some other big wigs at the CalBar and the California Attorney General so they’d never think of pissing off our partnership by initiating a “frivolous” investigation into how we screw our clients and then obstruct them from suing us. So that’s a plus in our column.
See why it pays to be a lawyer and not a doctor or an accountant or a dentist or psychologist. It would do them no good to collide with other firms or professionals not to sue each other. So those types of firms are much less valuable than us. So that’s a BIG PLUS in our column too.
We might have another itsy bitsy problem too. We represent Sonosite (NASDAQ: SONO) in their patent infringement litigation with GE. Well somebody found out that we’ve also represented GE cause we put it on our Wikipedia page and a couple of partners had GE as their client on our website too. So if we lose that litigation to GE then Sonosite’s shareholders are gonna think we sold em’ down the river and they’re gonna be real mad at us. And you’re not gonna believe this but that Goodwin guy who says we screwed him and his company out of $25 million plus, well his first cousin, Kevin Goodwin, is the CEO of Sonosite. But since we signed that agreement with a bunch of other law firms not to sue each other and have a lot of big time politicians, attorneys general and judges in our pocket Sonosite’s greedy shareholders shouldn’t be a problem. So that’s really a plus in our column.
We got ourselves in to a spate of trouble over telling Qualcomm to withhold bunches of emails in their litigation against Broadcom. But them emails would of sunk our client’s case and they paid us millions to win even though we lost anyway. But I don’t think we’ll get fined or have to pay any of our legal fees back cause we got lots of low friends in high places. So that’s another plus in our column.
We’ve been shopping around for a buyer for awhile. We were talking to Baker McKenzie but those talks were a bust. They made all our attorneys take a quiz about ethics or morals or something like that. I didn’t hear what the results were but I did listen in on the call where they broke up with us and the big boss over there said something about if they’d given the quiz in true false format instead of multiple guess he thought the scores would have been much higher– maybe even double. So that’s a plus in our column.
Now were low on cash and with gas prices the way they are everybody’s complaining that we’re losing clients and it costs a lot to fill our Bentleys, Jaguars, Lamborghinis, BMWs, Rolls, Ferraris, Mercedes, etcetera. We placed a freeze in the employee lounge on 18 year old Chivas and champagne that costs over $250 per bottle and Cuban cigars we have smuggled in to the country; and we’re only hosing down the conference rooms once a week so we’re saving water too—GOIN’ GREEN!!! We also made a deal with a guy to buy Porches which get much better mileage… DOUBLE GREEN. So that’s a big plus in our column.
To sum it up, cash is tight because of those greedy investment bankers on Wall Street and the gas prices and our top lawyers keep leaving and the few screw ups we’ve had. Butt, we’ve gussied up all the conference rooms. Had the conference tables sanitized and are ready to sell.
Price: Well we need $90 million or so, to compensate that Goodwin guy, because we helped Marcia Hatch err… Marcia Bruggeman-Hatch’s husband Seamus and his partner to steal all of the assets of Barra Partners and put em’ in Arian Strategic Finance. I think that’s about the same amount we had to pay to the shareholders of eCompare because another one of our unsupervised associates destroyed that company a few years back so it must be the going rate. Anyway, if we could get a few bucks more than $90 million it would make everybody around here feel better and my boss says he’ll give me a commission.
“Frank could you proof this?”
“Looks good!
Just got the latest tally and we’re down to 637 lawyers so change the number but leave the brackets because our head count is changing by the hour.”
“How bout I have Seamus Hatch and Michael Bock over there at Arian Strategic Finance, steal some photos and professional biographies off other law firm’s websites; then I’ll have tech support create email accounts for em’ and we’ll put em’ on our website so we’ll look bigger and be more valuable?”
“Good idea! Here are the rest of my comments…
I don’t know if I’d use the phrase “breeding ground” to describe us. Consider changing that.
It’s the Democratic party not the Democrat party. So change that.
Oh take the name of the firm out.
You misspelled Bruggeman but got it right the second try so delete the first one.
In the interest of full disclosure, you might tell buyers that Marcia Bruggeman married her bi-sexual boyfriend Seamus Hatch and changed her name to Marcia Hatch.
It’s Obama not Osama.
You mean Presidential Pardon not a “your excused letter.”
I think you’re referring to Porsches so change that.
I think you mean collude instead of collide
Is it Arian Strategic Finance or Aran Strategic Finance?
You mean but with one t instead of two.
Make those changes and it’s good to go.”
“Whoops! I accidently pressed the post button…”
[Originally posted September 16, 2008]
You need to be a regular on Fox News…..
Go Falcons…. i.e., Air Force Falcons