About Timothy Harper
Timothy Harper is an award-winning journalist, author and lawyer. He has written for The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Atlantic Monthly, among others. He’s also a collaborator, ghostwriter, and book doctor with a dozen books of his own, including License to Steal: The Secret World of Wall Street and the Systematic Plundering of the American Investor; and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the U.S. Constitution. He received his law degree from the University of Wisconsin and has taught in the journalism graduate schools at CUNY, Columbia and NYU.
Articles written by Timothy Harper
Making Deals Happen
In junior high, Brian Weinhart sold hair dryers to secretaries; now he makes multimillion-dollar dealsIt was 1997. Brian Weinhart and some buddies were flying home to Los Angeles from a ski weekend in Utah when he began feeling mild chest discomfort. He was in his mid-30s, healthy, and had never had any heart problems. His friends told him he’d probably pulled a muscle. But when they landed, just to be safe, Weinhart had them drive him straight from the airport to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He was rushed through the emergency room and diagnosed with myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart …
The Ultimate Lawyer-Statesman
How Gary Naftalis beat Perry Mason, defended Michael Eisner, and sank a shot at Madison Square GardenThe receptionists were polite and apologetic, but unfortunately, they said, Gary Naftalis would be tied up longer than expected. When Naftalis finally appeared, he, too, was apologetic. He explained that he had been delayed by an emergency phone call. He also suggested, with a wry smile, that getting into his office right away was not necessarily a good thing. “If you were in big enough trouble, you would have gotten in right away,” he said. For people in big trouble, Naftalis is worth …
Mark H. Jackson’s Second Client Is the First Amendment
His first is Dow JonesIn his senior year of high school, when Mark H. Jackson was editor of the Cougar Crier, the student newspaper at John F. Kennedy High School in Long Island, his staff reported a story that the school administration didn’t like. Jackson can’t remember what the story was about, but he does remember being called to the principal’s office. He was told that the story had to be killed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Tanenbaum,” he told the principal. The newspaper was already circulating throughout the …
The Expert
Greg Joseph is the corporate litigator you want answering that 3 a.m. (or 4 a.m.) phone callLast October, at 4 o’clock on a Friday morning, a phone call from Michael S. Helfer, general counsel of Citigroup, awoke Gregory Joseph. A few days earlier Citigroup had made a deal to acquire troubled Wachovia bank, and Helfer had subsequently learned that Wachovia wanted to accept an offer from Wells Fargo instead. He needed Joseph to go to court to enforce the original deal. “I have to be on a plane to Moscow at 4 o’clock this afternoon,” a groggy Joseph warned. Didn’t matter. …
Priceless
Noah Hanft leads the charge at MasterCardIn 1972, when Noah Hanft was looking for part-time work to help pay his way through college, he interviewed for a job with CREEP, President Richard Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President. Instead, he opted for a position as a receptionist in a girls' dormitory. It was the first in a succession of discerning career choices by Hanft. He eventually gave up the receptionist job to study in Europe and graduate from college, then worked for a solo practitioner during law school, spent five years …
International Road Warrior
Rachel Robbins, lead lawyer for the World Bank's International Finance Corporation, always knows where her passport isIn 1966, when Rachel F. Robbins was 16, she wrote a letter to herself, describing her hopes and her dreams. She sealed the letter in an envelope, vowing not to open it until her 30th birthday. She wanted to remind herself, as an adult, of what she had been like as a teenager, and to capture that sense of wonder and possibility. When Robbins dug out the letter in 1980—yes, she waited until her 30th birthday—she was struck by two things: "I said I wanted to be working, self-supporting," she …
Mr. Connected
Angelo Genova goes from coffeehouse crooner to power playerEven though these days Angelo Genova is regarded as Mr. Connected in New Jersey law and politics, he still sees himself as the hippie-haired, guitar-strumming student teacher from his days at Montclair State. And why not? It's the qualities he developed as a barroom entertainer that have helped him become the hugely influential attorney whose name is on the door at Genova, Burns & Vernoia in Newark. From his earliest days as a middle child in a big family, he learned to be a negotiator and …
Rupert Murdoch’s Right-Hand Man
Lon Jacobs helped News Corporation take over The Wall Street Journal and MySpaceThings were going so well at News Corporation, the parent company for media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's many holdings, including Dow Jones, MySpace, and DirecTV, that Murdoch went to his general counsel and announced he wanted to buy more shares in the company. Could he do it? "Sure," Lon Jacobs replied. "But if you do, you'll go to jail." Murdoch, who hadn't realized the company was in a "quiet time"—when executives are subject to insider trading restrictions before announcing information that …
Pepsi One
Larry Thompson stands behind an iconic American brandFor a while there, Indra Nooyi, the chairwoman and CEO of PepsiCo, was getting tired of all the speculation that Larry D. Thompson, her general counsel, was going to take one of those big law jobs in Washington. First it was the opening for attorney general when John Ashcroft resigned in late 2004. Then there were the two Supreme Court vacancies in 2005 when Sandra Day O'Connor retired and William Rehnquist died. And in 2007, the attorney general job opened up again after Alberto Gonzales quit …
Boies v. Bush v. Gore
David Boies looks back at a brilliant career... and a Supreme Court decision that changed a nationIt's a cruel irony that David Boies, one of the most celebrated trial lawyers of his generation, may best be remembered for his biggest defeat—as Al Gore's lawyer in Bush v. Gore, the U.S. Supreme Court case that stopped the recount in Florida and handed the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush. Boies, famous for his calm, used to say, "Why should I worry? Because I might lose? That's the worst thing that could happen to me?" No more. There are things worse than losing a case. "I lost …
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