I was very proud to work with Bill Coleman at O'Melveny & Myers' Washington D.C. office. Bill passed away on March 31 at the age of 96. He was a legendary figure and an old school Philadelphia lawyer, never afraid to ask people for their business.
(For the main highlights of Bill's official life -- read the NY Times obituary, or Bill's memoir with Don Bliss, "Counsel for the Situation".
I had some memorable opportunities to work on matters with him, but really a few other memories stand out:
1. I remember going to a meeting with Bill, a seminar even, somewhere on Massachusetts Ave a few blocks NW of Dupont Circle. When we came out and wanted to head back to the office, and stepped to the curb to hail a taxi. ... one IMMEDIATELY did a huge swooping (illegal) U-turn and pulled up before we could barely raise an arm. The older African American cabby said "hello Mr. Coleman, please get in" with a big smile on his face. He was obviously elated to get Bill Coleman in his taxi cab!
2. Around the same time, there was a dinner at the Supreme Court (historical society?) in honor of Elliot Richardson where Bill spoke, and I was lucky to be one of the O'Melveny attendees. Of course, Elliot Richardson was the U.S. Attorney General who resigned rather than fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox, thus becoming one of the heroes of the Watergate era. Elliot and Bill were in the same class at Harvard Law School -- I believe they were roommates, and they both clerked for Justice Felix Frankfurter. At the dinner, I remember the old, short, rotund Bill talk with a sparkle in his eye of meeting Elliot on the first day he was at Harvard, and of them racing each other in a 100 yard dash that day, I guess as part of a physical fitness test, and becoming instant friends for life. Bill said that he won the sprint, though it was hard to believe looking at the man speaking in 1990. Of course, Bill won just about everything he tried, and he never, ever gave up.
3. The first year I was in Tokyo in 1992-93, after spending a year in the Washington D.C. office, I was seconded to a trading company's legal department. Sometimes it was hard and lonely duty -- brutishly short business trips to and from other continents, long hours and jet lag, a crisis atmosphere after the "bubble" had burst, no privacy at the office, the pervasive stench of cigarette smoke, and no Internet connection, no email, no Skype/Facetime nor smartphones to keep in touch. And at times that year when the O'Melveny office's sole partner was traveling abroad, I was the only lawyer from my firm in Japan, ... sometimes even in Asia, as the Hong Kong office did not open for another year.
Bill had just retired from the IBM board of directors (at the mandatory retirement age of 65), but remained on the company's "international advisory board." IBM would hold a board meeting in Tokyo every other year, and it was a big deal with investor presentations, speeches by the CEO to a massive hotel conference room, press coverage, etc. When the IBM board scheduled a meeting in 1993, Bill let me know that he and Lovida would be there. He told the IBM folks to invite me to some of the public events, and to make sure that my wife and I were invited to the board's dinner.
The dinner was at a very fancy Michelin-starred French restaurant in Ark Hills (Paul Bocuse?). It was like being cinderella, swept away from my daily grind and into that dinner. We sat at a table for ten with CEOs of Roche Pharmaceutical, Cap Cities/ABC/ESPN (Tom Murphy), and Johnson & Johnson (Jim Burke), their spouses, and Bill and Lovida. Burke and Murphy played a key role in firing John Akers, the IBM CEO who was at the dinner as well, at the next table. The firing happened at the next board meeting, a month or two later. And Burke and Murphy hired Lou Gerstner, who transformed and revived the company over the following decade.
I remember thinking, wow, there were lots of other partners, and lawyers, from O'Melveny who would come through Tokyo and I would be lucky if they even stopped by the office to say "hi" during a trip, and here was Bill going out of his way to give me an experience I would remember for the rest of my life.
4. Of course, even before I started at O'Melveny DC, I had met Bill when I visited the office since he joined plenty of office functions--and there were many in those days. But the most memorable early interaction was at the end of the 1990-91 Supreme Court term, when I was clerking for Justice Kennedy. As the term progressed, it was obvious that Justice Thurgood Marshall was slowing down, and would be retiring soon. So it was only a slight surprise when a press conference was called on the last day of the term, at which TM* announced his retirement. It was a historic occasion, the room full of the court's personnel and the Washington press corps, and I was eager to watch from one of the back rows of the room. And who was at TM's side the whole time, helping him into his chair, sitting patiently next to him, helping him to stand again and with a hand on the elbow as TM lumbered out of the room, offering support in every way possible? Bill Coleman.
Thank you Bill. I miss you.
*The clerks referred to the justices by their initials. Kennedy was (and is) AMK, Marshall was TM, Blackmun HAB, etc... except for Rehnquist, who was always "The Chief"!
| Bill Coleman, Thurgood Marshall and Wiley Brandon, in front of the US Supreme Court, a few years after Brown v Board of Education. |
