Greenberg Traurig

Greenberg Traurig, LLP and Greenberg Traurig, PA (trading as Greenberg Traurig)
Headquarters	Miami, Florida, United States
No. of offices	34
No. of attorneys	Approximately 1,800
Major practice areas	Business Reorganization and Bankruptcy Litigation Corporate and Securities Intellectual Property and Information Technology Entertainment Real Estate Tax, Trusts and Estates Global Trade Governmental Affairs Public Finance Environmental and Land Development Gaming
Key people	Richard A. Rosenbaum, CEO Cesar L. Alvarez, Executive Chairman Matthew Gorson, President Larry J. Hoffman, Chairman
Date founded	1967
Company type	Limited liability partnership
Website
gtlaw.com

Greenberg Traurig (officially Greenberg Traurig, LLP and Greenberg Traurig, PA) is an international law firm headquartered in Miami, United States. As of 2012 it has 29 offices in the United States and international offices in Amsterdam, London, Mexico City, Shanghai and Tel Aviv. The firm was founded in Miami in 1967 by Lawrence Hoffman, Mel Greenberg and Robert Traurig.

Greenberg Traurig has approximately 1,800 attorneys and its largest office is in New York City. In the U.K., the firm operates as Greenberg Traurig Maher LLP. Additionally, Greenberg Traurig, LLP has a strategic alliances with independent law firm Studio Santa Maria in Milan and Rome. Greenberg Traurig is the seventh largest American law firm based on number of lawyers.

Greenberg Traurig is managed by its Chief Executive Officer, Richard A. Rosenbaum; its Executive Chairman, Cesar L. Alvarez; its President, Matthew Gorson; and its Chairman and Founder, Larry J. Hoffman.

History

Greenberg, Traurig and Hoffman was founded in Miami, Florida in 1967 by attorneys Lawrence J. Hoffman, Mel Greenberg, and Robert Traurig. The firm initially had only one associate and one junior partner, and had no plans of expanding outside the Miami metropolitan area. As recently as 1991 it only had two offices, in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

In the 1970s, Greenberg, Traurig and Hoffman became Greenberg, Traurig, Hoffman, Lipoff, and Quentel with the addition of attorneys Norman H. Lipoff and Albert D. Quentel as named partners. Former Florida governor Reubin Askew was a named partner in the early 1980s while he also sought the Democratic nomination for president.^{[citation needed]}

Larry Hoffman became managing partner of the firm in 1991, at which point the firm began to expand nationwide, beginning with the opening of an office in New York City. In July 2009, Greenberg Traurig entered the London market, forming a new UK firm, operating as Greenberg Traurig Maher LLP.

Offices

North America

Greenberg Traurig's world headquarters in Miami.

Greenberg Traurig's largest office is in the MetLife Building in New York City. The New York office is one of many offices founded in the 1990s, when GT expanded from a local Miami firm to become one of the largest in the United States.

• Albany
• Atlanta
• Austin
• Boca Raton
• Boston (One International Place)
• Chicago
• Dallas (JPMorgan Chase Tower)
• Delaware
• Denver
• Fort Lauderdale
• Houston
• Las Vegas
• Los Angeles (Office located in Santa Monica)
• Miami (Founding Office)
• New Jersey
• New York (MetLife Building)
• Orange County
• Orlando
• Philadelphia
• Phoenix
• Sacramento
• San Francisco
• Silicon Valley
• Tallahassee
• Tampa
• Tysons Corner
• Washington, DC
• West Palm Beach
• White Plains

Europe

• Amsterdam, Netherlands
• London, England (Greenberg Traurig Maher LLP)
• Milan, Italy (Strategic Alliance with Studio Santa Maria)
• Rome, Italy (Strategic Alliance with Studio Santa Maria)

Asia

• Shanghai, China

Corporate social responsibility

Fellows program

The Greenberg Traurig Fellowship Foundation was established in 1997. The Foundation sponsors fellows who have worked on public interest projects in many of the communities in which the firm practices.

Family court program

The Family Court Legal Services Project is a pro bono program where attorneys from law firms and corporations provide advice and counsel during 30-minute one-on-one sessions to pro se litigants who come to family court on matters involving child support, visitation, custody, guardianship and paternity.

Greenberg Traurig helped spearhead the New York City Family Court Legal Services Project, which provides low-income litigants in family court with free legal advice.

Holocaust reparation clinics

In 2008, in association with Jewish service organizations and in cooperation with various law firms, Greenberg Traurig attorneys in South Florida participated in pro bono legal clinics assisting Holocaust survivors applying for reparations from the German government.

Housing Court initiative

The firm helped spearhead a Housing Court initiative along with Judge Fern Fisher, Chief Administrative Judge of the Civil Court of the City of New York, that addresses pro bono legal needs of owners of small properties in Brooklyn who cannot afford their own attorney.

Controversies

Lobbying and Jack Abramoff scandal

In January 2001, lobbyist Jack Abramoff left Preston Gates & Ellis to join Greenberg Traurig. Abramoff brought a book of business then worth more than $6 million annually to Greenberg Traurig, according to his own estimates. At the firm he assembled "Team Abramoff," a lobbying team that was involved in the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal and the monetary influence of Jack Abramoff. A Greenberg spokesman said that its federal lobbying revenue in 2005 was 1 percent of its total revenues of $860 million.

In 2000, before Abramoff joined the firm, Greenberg had $3.3 million in lobbying fees. After he joined in 2001, the firm took in $16.2 million in fees. By 2002, that number jumped to $17.7 million, and $25.5 million by 2003. The firm became one of the top 10 of Washington lobbying firms, moving from 16th place to fourth, according to the National Journal.

In early 2004 Greenberg Traurig fired Abramoff and subsequently received praise from federal investigators and members of Congress for its cooperation in the Abramoff investigation, according to the ABA Journal.

On July 12, 2006, the Alabama-Coushatta tribe filed a federal racketeering lawsuit against now-convicted Abramoff and his cohorts. Greenberg Traurig was not a named defendant. Its lawsuit states that "There was a nexus between Greenberg, the enterprise and the pattern of racketeering." According to the suit, internal Greenberg e-mails showed that Abramoff associate Michael Scanlon, although not a member of the firm, "billed hours to tribal clients through Greenberg and that members of the law firm, including attorneys Kevin Ring, Shawn Vasell, Stephanie Leger, Todd Boulanger and others, fabricated hours and time entries for Scanlon." The suit also says the firm allowed checks sent by the tribe to a bogus Abramoff-linked think tank to be funneled and cashed through Greenberg Traurig.

In March 2008, prosecutors in Guam indicted Greenberg Traurig on felony counts of allegedly making improper billings to Guam's superior court under the guise of charging for lobbying services by Jack Abramoff. In April 2008, the charges of deception, theft and conspiracy were dismissed by Guam prosecutors after Greenberg Traurig agreed to refund $324,000 in lobbying fees to the Guam judiciary.

Other

• In November 2008, a New York State court refused to dismiss a suit alleging that Robert J. Ivanhoe, chairman of Greenberg Traurig's New York City office and head of its real estate group, disregarded his "legal and fiduciary duties" by taking a personal financial stake in a competitor to a client that had invested in a multibillion-dollar real estate venture. The former client had sued Ivanhoe and Greenberg Traurig in April 2008 for breach of fiduciary duty, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, tortious interference with prospective economic damages, and malpractice. Greenberg Traurig responded that the allegations were "without merit" and that it would appeal the ruling.
• In June 2006, Greenberg Traurig agreed to pay the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation $7.6 million for its role as a legal adviser to the now defunct Hamilton Bank of Miami, to settle allegations that it had helped to cover up bank officers' financial misconduct. The firm paid an additional $750,000 fine to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for allegedly protecting the bank's officers "by making materially false and misleading assertions and by suppressing material evidence."
• In December 2008, the firm and several current and former firm attorneys (Harley Lewin, Steven Wadyka and Janet Shih-Hajek) were sued in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia by Catherine and Richard Snyder of Herndon, Virginia. Also named in the suit, Greenberg Traurig's client, Diane Von Furstenberg Studios, Conde Nast Publications, The New Yorker and New Yorker staff reporter, Larissa MacFarquhar. The Snyders' suit stems from a suit filed in the same court by Diane Von Furstenberg Studios against Catherine Snyder in December 2006 for trademark infringement, which resulted in an award of damages to DVF Studios. The Snyders' complaint alleges, among other things, that the Greenberg attorneys made false statements to the court when applying for a search warrant and that one (Wadyka) impersonated a federal officer by flashing a badge and stating that he was with the office of the U.S. Attorney. The suit also alleges that the attorneys failed to post a required bond and that the search of the Snyders' home exceeded the scope of the warrant and resulted in the seizure of many personal items. The suit also alleges that the firm's attorneys improperly brought New Yorker staff reporter MacFarquhar, who was profiling Lewin for a forthcoming article, into the Snyders' home while conducting their raid in December 2006 pursuant to the search warrant.

• In November 2006, Jay I. Gordon, the former chairman of Greenberg Traurig's tax practice, resigned from the New York bar and was disbarred for taking over $1.2 million in kickbacks on tax shelters that he had recommended to wealthy clients of the firm.

• In December 2005, Leonard Ross, an attorney formerly with Greenberg Traurig's Philadelphia office, was charged with fraud and corruption as part of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation into city government. Ross was a friend and former law partner of Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street: Federal prosecutors alleged that Ross's employment at Greenberg was "entirely dependent on his relationship with Mayor Street" and "a motive for selling his office as a PLC [Penns Landing Corporation] board member."

• In May 2005, Philadelphia partner Robert S. Grossman plead guilty to charges that he had lied in a 1996 bankruptcy case to cover up his improper diversion of over $100,000 to his personal account when he worked as a real estate developer in Virginia. Greenberg Traurig professed surprise at Grossman's arrest the following November for failing to report to prison, and stated that Grossman hadn't disclosed the criminal proceeding to the firm. Greenberg has stated that it now does background checks on all new employees.

• In 2001, Victor Reyes, who headed the Hispanic Democratic Organization and had close ties to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, joined Greenberg Traurig and led the firm's Chicago lobbying practice. After Reyes's arrival, from 2001 to 2005, Greenberg earned $ 3.5 million in city-related legal fees, including for representing the city in the United Airlines and RCN Cable TV bankruptcies. US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald subsequently alleged that Reyes's law office was central to a patronage scheme to funnel city jobs to pro-Daley campaign workers. Reyes resigned from Greenberg in August 2005, and in September federal prosecutors indicted five city employees, including a former Reyes aide, in the scandal. Reyes wasn't charged, but prosecutors called him as a "co-schemer" in the indictment. Greenberg CEO Cesar L. Alvarez stated, "I don't know about anything [Reyes] did in the firm that was wrong. I can only know what I have seen, and I only know that he hasn't been charged."

External links

• Greenberg Traurig Official website
• Greenberg Traurig Maher Official website
• Greenberg Traurig - article from SourceWatch
• LawPeriscope Profile
• Will the Corporate Model Backfire on Greenberg? American Lawyer, March 6, 2007