Outside The Box

Wang Fat’s Story

           If the following seems like a digression, it probably is. But I think it tells a lot about my wiring.

           Young associates at Dewey didn't have secretaries. We were 3 men to an office. (When I say men I mean men. WASPs. Only a few years earlier, Dewey, to its credit, had made Len Joseph the first Jewish partner in a non-Jewish Wall Street firm. Ben Lopez became the first Wall Street partner with a Spanish surname. There were no partners on Wall Street who were female, black or out of the closet.)

           In my crowded office with Mike Dooley and John Dealy, we could either dictate on tape (which was hard with two people listening) or write on yellow legal pads with our choice of either a No. 2 or No. 2 1/2 Ticonderoga pencils. The secretarial pool was hit or miss. They ranged from extremely good to “no dumber than a fence post but no smarter than one either.” I blamed them. They blamed my handwriting. But it was laborious to get anything produced that was good enough to send out. Frustrated, I learned I could cut my revision time by typing my drafts, and in time became fast.

           One day a strange contraption arrived. It was a big brown punched paper tape automatic typewriter which spewed snow every time a new tape was cut. Like all fledgling securities lawyers, I was cutting my teeth in blue sky (state securities compliance), which involved sending endless repetitious letters. Only the best secretaries could operate the newly-arrived thing, and I found it could further reduce my need to revise and my proofreading time. Of course if one letter was wrong they all were.

           After I moved back to Omaha and before joining Kutak, I used to use my secretary’s “mag card” typewriter at night. After joining Kutak, I used the secretaries’ “memory typewriters” when they were invented.

           One morning Bob Kutak came in as mad as I’ve ever seen him. Rosemary was crying because I had erased all her memories. Well, I didn't think I erased all her memories. I pleaded for leniency based upon increased efficiency, and he agreed to buy a memory typewriter for me if I would promise not to use any of any of the secretaries’ stuff until it came.

           It cost $6,000, was backordered for six months, was big as a major suitcase, weighed over 50 pounds and came in an outlandish green Naugahyde® carrying case at extra cost. I bought it a First Class seat once or twice, but it was really too big to take on assignment. I was already regarded as eccentric enough.

           After we moved into The Omaha Building in 1978, Dr. An Wang introduced the Wang WP20 word processor. It was significantly larger, heavier and more delicate. But you could see what you had written. It ran on dual 8” floppies, each of which could hold a whole section of a prospectus. I went to Boston, visited Wang Laboratories, met Dr. Wang and ordered two units on the spot. The only problem was it took another year for them to open an Omaha office, but my Secretary Ernie Brown and I got the first two Wangs in Nebraska.

           I kept referring to it as “my computer” because it needled our computer-science-major partner who kept saying, “it’s not a computer, it’s a word processor.” Whatever it was, it dramatically increased my efficiency, and made me a legend in my own mind. It was so unique that a lawyer would use one that Dr. Wang sent a writer and a photographer to Omaha to do a story on me. After the story came back for approval, I showed it to Kutak, who got real mad. He called it “an exercise in self-aggrandizement” and tore it up. It was ironic coming from the master of self–aggrandizement himself. I think Bob just didn’t want to share the limelight.

           One year, we were designated by E.F. Hutton to act as counsel on the roll up of the Can-Am drilling partnerships by Conquest Exploration. It was the first public roll up filed with the SEC in the drilling industry and the first limited partnership roll up of any kind. A Kutak/Hutton team holed up in the Anatole Hotel in Ft. Worth for week after week, and hung out after work with the Can-Am guys at Billy Bob’s Texas, billed as world’s largest country and western bar. They also came to Omaha, and asked about 1,000 times whether I was “playing with my Wang.”

           When it came time to actually write this behemoth prospectus, they took us all to the Chairman’s ranch in West, Texas, which had its own golf course and gorgeous entertainment facilities including a built-in barbeque for a whole cow and a dance floor over a lake. The guys had also arranged to borrow a Wang WP20 from the local Wang office in Dallas which they packed into a station wagon along with the jalepeňo peppers and Lone Star Beer. It was perhaps the greatest mix of business with pleasure of my legal career. During the trip, they presented me with a hand tooled leather belt from Billy Bob’s own leather smith with the name WANG FAT embossed on the back. The last name was an allusion to my see-food problem (I see food and I eat it.)

           Eventually, the firm installed a gigantic Wang computer which took up a quarter of the third floor. Word processing terminals were given to any lawyers who wanted them, and many did.

           When the last Wang died, the world became a less efficient place. Efficiency experts now estimate that 50% of the time spent with a computer is wasted in “futzing” rather than composing. The Wangs were simpler and faster to use. There were no pull down menus and your hand never reached away for the mouse. There were just 13 keys in addition to the keyboard which did indenting, formatting and that stuff. You couldn't make a document like this one, but you could do it a lot faster.

           And now, it is time for (drum roll) Wang Fat’s Chinese Lawyer Proverb. I know it was written by a lawyer because, as you will see, it contains what we lawyers call an “escape clause” - the only proverb I know that has one:

           All things in moderation, including moderation.

           I know it’s authentic because I found it in a fortune cookie. (No, it was actually a favorite expression of the late lawyer, Paul Festerson whenever he had been “over served.”)

           I hope you’ve enjoyed Wang Fat’s story, because I’m stickin’ to it.

           Enjoy life.

           Think outside the box.

           And believe this, “The most important thing in life is to be authentic. Always.”