The Rescue Squad

The intersection between law and business grows more congested and perilous with each passing headline. Scary, scandalous collisions at Enron, Andersen, and Global Crossing, among others, are proving deadly for employees and shareholders alike. No company is safe. And emergency triage operations -- life-saving legal campaigns -- are gaining speed and severity at dozens of seasoned law firms like Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.

One of the most successful and profitable law firms in the United States, GD&C is a master of disaster. Founded in Los Angeles 112 years ago, the firm is perhaps best known for its winning litigation department -- dubbed "the rescue squad" by the American Lawyer magazine in January because it has won so many high-profile, high-stakes, high-speed cases for American big business. Oh yeah, it also won a little U.S. Supreme Court case called Bush v. Gore back in December 2000.

GD&C's leading lawyer in Bush v. Gore was Theodore Olson, who left shortly afterward to become solicitor general of the United States. But the firm did not forfeit its magic when Olson moved on. Last year alone, it won landmark legal cases for DaimlerChrysler, Lockheed Martin, and AMR Corp., the parent of American Airlines. In each case, the appellate team at GD&C stepped into dire circumstances ($250 million in punitive damages in the DaimlerChrysler case) and turned things around with deft skill.

"Our job is to put out the flames that are causing an immediate and fatal threat," says Theodore Boutrous, lead lawyer on the DaimlerChrysler case. "Once things are under control, we have to find the root cause of the problem. Oftentimes, a terrible injustice has occurred -- something has gone wrong in the jury room or during the trial that has produced an erroneous verdict. We have to figure out what legal flaw in that verdict will allow us to eliminate the problem all together."

Here, Boutrous and colleague Thomas Hungar explain how the rescue squad at GD&C operates -- and wins -- with efficiency, flexibility, and speed.

Waste No Time

On November 7, 2000, one day after the U.S. presidential elections, Theodore Olson received a phone call from George W. Bush's campaign camp. Traveling between his home base in Washington, D.C. and the GD&C offices in Los Angeles, Olson picked up his voice mail upon arrival at LAX. Within minutes, he was boarding a plane bound for Florida and kicking off a string of legal battles, including Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board and Bush v. Gore -- arguably the most momentous political-legal battle in history.

"The Florida Supreme Court handed down its decision on a Friday," Hungar, who worked alongside Olson for the Bush campaign, recalls in the canvassing-board case. "We filed our papers in the U.S. Supreme Court that Friday night. The Supreme Court granted review the next day. We filed our main brief the day after that and began our arguments the day after that -- Monday morning. It all proceeded extremely quickly."

But Bush v. Gore was the real killer. GD&C had just 48 hours to brief and prepare arguments for the case that would decide the next U.S. president. Ultimately, the Supreme Court held (by a 7-2 vote) that Florida's recount procedures were unconstitutional and (by a 5-4 vote) that no further recounts were permissible. Those decisions, however contentious, validated the firm's focus on speed and diligence.

"Speed is incredibly important, but it means nothing without thoroughness," Boutrous says. "One of the most crucial skills is the ability to plunge in quickly, distill the key issues in a case, process the facts very quickly -- within hours in some cases -- and then immerse yourself in the case instantly and reemerge as if you've been there all along."

Lawyers working on tight deadlines must not only understand the nuances of a given case in 10 seconds flat, but they must also be able to articulate those nuances forcefully in front of a judge, a jury, and the national media. Comprehension is not enough.

"Very, very quickly, you must be able to speak the language of that case," Boutrous says. "Within a few days of getting a case, it's really important to learn the key players, witnesses, evidence, and issues -- and then be able to write about it in a way that is not only persuasive as a legal argument but sounds as if you are speaking its particular language. If you sound like an authority, the judge will have confidence in what you're saying."