Outside The Box

40 Wall Street

           My legal career began at 40 Wall Street working for “The Governor.” Thomas E. Dewey was a crime-fighting District Attorney who broke up Tammany Hall, the corrupt New York City political machine, and was elected Governor of New York. He nearly beat Harry Truman for President.

           I had earned my place at the table by being an outstanding student, ranking first in the class at Nebraska Law School every semester. In those days,  Wall Street hired almost exclusively from Harvard, Yale and Columbia, but they made an exception for me. Thus, I was hurled from Omaha into the caldron of New York City to learn about street people, hippies and life on Avenue B.

           Dewey made his presence felt in every corner of the firm, but a Nebraskan, Frank Crabill, from Red Cloud, headed the Securities Department. His closest lieutenant, John Chappell, hailed from Minden, Nebraska. Len Larrabee and Benito Lopez rounded out the trio of senior associates. They all three became partners while I was there. I was one of three junior associates in Securities.

           I didn’t work directly for Dewey, but everyone at the firm worked for Dewey. Frank Crabill was a very important partner and was old enough for senior citizen discounts. He kept his files in stacks of folders on the perimeter of his office — a different stack for each client. One day his secretary’s door was closed. I opened it and exclaimed, “Miss Richards, what happened?” Her office was stacked half way to the ceiling with folders. She said, “Well because Mr. Crabill has a cast on his leg, The Governor is coming down to see him, and he was afraid to let him see a messy office.”

           When I started in 1965, the new issue market was hotter than a pistol and the SEC was working on the “hot issue releases.” The market was brimming with high technology companies (which were especially popular if the prospectus mentioned NASA in any way). There was also a new type of business organization called franchising—the dot.com stocks of the ‘60s. “Conglomerate was a brand new word.

           We were very busy, and I was handed lots of responsibility. For example, when I was six months out of law school I was sent to Maryland alone to close the acquisition of Delaney Foods by Green Giant. I was so wet behind the ears you could have planted a rainforest there. I still said “War-shington” and “can’t hardly.” I knew nothing about the deal and less than nothing about acquisitions. I had taken college accounting — that was it — in law school nada. I remember Frank Crabill saying something like, “You’re the only one we have. Just sit down and keep quiet.” All I remember was walking into a conference room the size of Mammoth Cave. I was so traumatized I’ve repressed everything else, but it was a long time before I worked on any more Green Giant matters. In those days, we got lots of experience fast.

           While at Dewey, I worked on over 80 public offerings, mostly new issues. We represented top-drawer underwriters and blue chip companies. I worked on the largest acquisition in history—$460 million (pocket change by today’s standards). I learned to practice law in a pressure cooker under the best teachers in the field.