Ruden Still in Growth Mode!

You know how Ruden indicated to The Intrepid One a few weeks ago that it was in growth mode and looking to hire some new associates, but then turned around and fired a bunch of dedicated staffers just in time for the holidays?

Well it looks like that form of "growth" is continuing:

The West Palm Beach office of Shutts & Bowen law firm has announced an end-of year expansion, bringing five new lawyers to the team. The firm has not yet named a fifth lawyer expected to join the practice at the start of 2011.

Among the arrivals are Ruden McClosky top producers real estate lawyer Steven Parson and business litigator Eric Christu. Both join Shutts as partners.

Call me crazy, but nothing shouts GROWTH louder than losing a top producer to a direct competitor.

This is truly Sun Tzu in action.

Well played, sir!

Come Back to the Five and Dime, Bowman Brown, Bowman Brown.

Oh Bowman Brown, why have you left us all alone?

Where will we get all of our super easy Stanford scandal posts? Will we have to put some effort into this blog again? Oh hail.

Let’s take a wistful look back at the evolution of a media anecdote writ large:

Our story begins on February 17, when the breaking news of the scandal emerged, with this quote from Brown:

''The Miami operation was an important focal point for international investors, especially from Latin America'' said Bowman Brown, a Miami attorney, who has several clients who bought CDs from the loosely regulated Antiguan bank. ``The consequences, particularly in Venezuela and also in Colombia and other Caribbean jurisdictions, will be significant.''

By Sunday, February 22, however, this blockbuster anecdote appeared in the Palm Beach Post:

During the 1980s, Stanford came calling at the office of Miami attorney Bowman Brown, a respected banking lawyer with the Shutts & Bowen law firm. Stanford needed help setting up a new venture.

"He wanted to set up an offshore operation with an office in Miami that would not be regulated by U.S. regulators," Brown said.

Suspicious, Brown declined the job.

Stanford ended up going elsewhere for legal help, and established the Miami office of Stanford International Bank of Antigua. The bank grew to three floors of an office building in downtown Miami. But around town, the Stanford bank's credibility wasn't high.

"It was an open secret in the banking community that the business model wasn't right," Brown said. "If you're paying above market rates and have a small accounting firm in a jurisdiction where they don't heavily regulate banks, and the process involves putting money into a black box and it comes out enhanced ... something is wrong."

About nine months ago, Brown said he saw Stanford in the elevator of his building, and Stanford bragged about the billions of dollars under management. But Brown got the last laugh. Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Stanford with orchestrating an $8 billion fraud selling high-yield certificates of deposit in his Antiguan bank. The SEC froze the assets of three of the companies Stanford controls: the bank; Stanford Group Co., a broker-dealer; and Stanford Capital Management, an investment adviser.

All Brown can say now is: "I am so glad I took a pass."

Ahh, a delicious war story, one of the best in my opinion.

The story of Bowman's Nostradamus-like good judgment was picked up everywhere, with inevitable TV interviews, and by the time the DBR picked it up, the story had this additional detail:

"What he wanted to do was just not workable in my view, it was not anything I wanted to be near," Brown said. "I told him that I couldn't help him, so he went across the street and found somebody who could and set up in Miami."

Now we know Shutts & Bowen (and Stanford's offices) are located in the Miami Center. And the American Lawyer reported this about Stanford's counsel:

One issue in particular, though, is relevant for the Am Law community: that an attorney for the company, Thomas Sjoblom of Proskauer Rose, sniffed out the fraud, withdrew his representation, and told federal investigators he essentially took back everything he had told to them in recent weeks, according to Bloomberg.

Sjoblom didn't return calls for comment, nor did Richard Razook of Hunton & Williams, another attorney reportedly representing Stanford.

Richard's office is not "across the street," it's well down the street on Brickell, and thus the mystery remains.

So by my estimation there are at least two more news pegs to this great anecdote -- (1) just who Bowman was vaguely alluding to without really identifying anyone in particular; and (2) the indignant denial by whoever the lawyer is that Bowman didn't specifically identify.

Come on folks, these posts don't write themselves. Give a brother a hand, will ya?

Did I Mention That Crook Almost Hired Me?

Can anyone politely ask Bowman Brown to shush up already over his now legendary near-miss almost representation of R. Allen Stanford:

“He came to town referred by a prominent Texas law firm in the late ’80s, early ’90s,” said Bowman Brown, an international banking attorney with Shutts & Bowen. “He was referred to me initially and I met with him.”

Stanford wanted to set up an offshore operation with an on-shore presence to sell into Latin America.

“He had just been thrown out of Montserrat — he didn’t tell me that — but researching that I see that he has and he wanted to set up in Antigua, which received sort of the refuse from Montserrat, which was a pirate banking community until Britain closed it down,” Brown recalled. “He had a bank chartered there and when Britain closed it down, they closed him down.”

Then Antigua opened up.

“What he wanted to do was just not workable in my view, it was not anything I wanted to be near,” Brown said. “I told him that I couldn’t help him, so he went across the street and found somebody who could and set up in Miami.”

Well, come on now, tell us!

What nudnick lawyer "across the street" was desperate enough to be retained by this patently obvious two-bit huckster?

But Bowman's once-sealed lips are now sealed again....sort of:

“I saw him [Stanford] in the elevator maybe nine months ago and as he got off the elevator,” Brown said, “he said, ‘Hey, remember me?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure I do. How are doing?’ He said, ‘Now we have $50 billion under management,’ sort of saying, ‘You dummy, look at all the fees you passed on.’ I thought to myself, ‘I’m sure I’ll see you in handcuffs some day.’ I’m so glad I didn’t get near that guy.”

Brown and other international banking attorneys are getting deluged by Stanford clients fearing the worst and hoping that somehow their money can be recovered.

“We’re working with maybe 40 or 50 clients at this point, and we’re just at the beginning,” Brown said. “I mean, I’m getting a call every 15 minutes, or people lining up at the door. This at a minimum will probably involve the $8 billion that supposedly was booked in the bank, but it will also involve all of the stuff that was booked in the broker dealer and whatever else he says, if half of it is to be believed — he has under advisement, which is $50 billion. Conceivably it could be in the range of the Madoff thing.”

Well, I guess there's nothing wrong with a little press to drum up some business, especially in this economy, and Bowman's a quality lawyer of course.

I particularly love any war story that burnishes your own reputation at the expense of the reputation of someone else. Like Gore Vidal says, it's not enough to win -- others must fail.

Time to Dust Off Those Stanford War Stories!

Boy, it's funny how everyone in town now swears they always knew R. Allen Stanford was a crook.

Hail, the lady pouring my cafecito this morning went on and on about how she always thought the guy was bad news.

Now comes Shutts attorney Bowman Brown, who shares this delightful war story about the good old days:

During the 1980s, Stanford came calling at the office of Miami attorney Bowman Brown, a respected banking lawyer with the Shutts & Bowen law firm. Stanford needed help setting up a new venture.

"He wanted to set up an offshore operation with an office in Miami that would not be regulated by U.S. regulators," Brown said.

Suspicious, Brown declined the job.

I don't know, the last time I checked isn't that an attorney-client conversation?

Who cares, the guy's sunk anyway:

"It was an open secret in the banking community that the business model wasn't right," Brown said. "If you're paying above market rates and have a small accounting firm in a jurisdiction where they don't heavily regulate banks, and the process involves putting money into a black box and it comes out enhanced ... something is wrong."

About nine months ago, Brown said he saw Stanford in the elevator of his building, and Stanford bragged about the billions of dollars under management. But Brown got the last laugh. Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Stanford with orchestrating an $8 billion fraud selling high-yield certificates of deposit in his Antiguan bank. The SEC froze the assets of three of the companies Stanford controls: the bank; Stanford Group Co., a broker-dealer; and Stanford Capital Management, an investment adviser.

All Brown can say now is: "I am so glad I took a pass."

See, everyone knew -- except the SEC (and Bowman's clients).

Bankers Behaving Badly, South Florida Edition.

Geez, I don't know who's worse -- Mr. Drysdale, or Mr. Mooney? Or maybe it's our own Miami Center's R. Allen Stanford:

At the heart of the investigation are CDs issued by Stanford International Bank, which claims to have 30,000 clients in 131 countries. The CDs paid ''improbable and unsubstantiated high interest rates,'' ranging from 11.4 percent to 16.5 percent between 1993 and 2005, and were sold by a web of brokers who collected hefty commissions for touting them, federal regulators alleged. Stanford claimed to invest the CD proceeds to buy safe, liquid assets, but instead invested in real estate and private equity, according to the SEC.

''The Miami operation was an important focal point for international investors, especially from Latin America'' said Bowman Brown, a Miami attorney, who has several clients who bought CDs from the loosely regulated Antiguan bank. ``The consequences, particularly in Venezuela and also in Colombia and other Caribbean jurisdictions, will be significant.''

Stanford's Miami office, which occupies three floors at the Miami Center at 201 S. Biscayne Blvd., has 138 employees, down from about 500 in 2006. Operations include a private client group, corporate affairs and investment banking, Brian Bertsch, a Stanford spokesman, said last week. The company transferred its Latin American operations, which were formerly part of the Miami office, to Mexico City about two months ago, he said. On Tuesday, Bertsch referred requests for comment to the SEC.

Stanford, a U.S. citizen who became a citizen of Antigua & Barbuda 10 years ago, has other Miami ties. He bought the sprawling bayfront Tyecliffe Castle, formally the Wackenhut estate, in Gables Estates in 2003 for $10.5 million.

Finally -- a nice solid bank fraud that is not centered in New York. Take that, Bernie!

See you all in the SD FL......

More New Math

The intrepid Julie Kay, working her beat:

In another sign of the hard times facing the legal industry, particularly in real-estate heavy South Florida, two local law firms — Holland & Knight and Shutts & Bowen — have laid off non-lawyer staffers.

On a day that could be dubbed Black Friday in South Florida legal circles, Tampa-based Holland & Knight, one of Florida's largest and most venerable firms with 1,150 lawyers, laid off 70 staffers Friday, including legal secretaries, IT and accounting staff. No lawyers were laid off.

The layoffs of about four employees in each of Holland's 17 offices represented 5% of Holland's non-lawyer workforce.

Shutts & Bowen, a 200-lawyer, Miami-based firm, Friday laid off nine people, all entry level file clerks or paralegal clerks. No lawyers or legal secretaries were affected.

The news comes on the heels of a decision announced internally Friday by Fort Lauderdale-based Becker & Poliakoff to temporarily and immediately chop all lawyer salaries by 12%. The firm, which is heavy in condo and real estate representation, said it was forced to take the action since clients are delaying payment in this lean economic environment.

Hmm. Harbinger of things to come?