Illuminating, extraordinarily candid history of the mega-law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom—one of a handful of firms that, within the last 20 years, have fundamentally changed the American law business. Relying heavily on interviews with past and present Skadden associates and partners, Caplan (An Open Adoption, 1990, etc.) presents an all-around picture of this unique firm: its post-WW II genesis on ``April Fools' Day in 1948'' by three lawyers who hadn't achieved partnership at established firms; its dominance in the 70's and 80's of the heady world of corporate takeovers; its frenetic and workaholic character; its rapid accumulation of capital from its takeover business; and its growth into a high- quality, full-service firm. Joseph Flom, Skadden's first associate (and the only surviving name-partner) emerges here as the architect of the mergers and acquisitions business that made Skadden the force it is today; and in telling how he and other aggressive partners developed a distinctive niche in corporate law, Caplan also tells the tale of how American law practice in general has grown and altered. As he points out, many other large law firms have mirrored Skadden's growth over the decades: its attempts, with little early success, to become a profitable international firm with offices in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Paris, and London; its formal pro bono program, offering fellowships to lawyers to practice in the area of ``public interest'' law; its acquisition of smaller firms in order to expand practice areas; its arbitrary decisions to make new partners; and its painful downsizing in the early 1990's, as the flood tide of corporate takeovers ebbed and then dried up. A convincing portrait in microcosm of the transformation of a once-sleepy profession into a giant, though troubled, global industry.
Pub Date: Nov. 24, 1993
ISBN: 0-374-26566-6
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1993
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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