Outside The Box

Birth Of A National Law Firm

           In 1970 I returned to Nebraska, and set up shop in Omaha as a consultant to other lawyers on matters of corporate finance and securities law. Three years later, I was introduced to Bob Kutak and Harold Rock. Both were nationally prominent lawyers. Rock was past President of the American Bar Association and Kutak headed the Kutak Commission. The Kutak Commission was the ABA’s overhaul of the legal ethics system. It recommended that a modernized Code of Professional Responsibility replace the Canons of Legal Ethics. Among other things, the new Code provided a framework for the practice of law across state lines. Previously, each partner in a law firm had to be a member of the bar in each state where the firm maintained an office. Kutak’s new Code gave rise to the gargantuan law firms of today.

           I became the ninth partner of Kutak Rock on January 1, 1974. After that, the firm grew very rapidly. It tapped into the new rules for doing business across state lines, and by 1979 had reached 148 lawyers.

           The firm was written up in a feature article in Fortune, which said that it “could well be the fastest-growing large law firm in the country.” The article showed a picture of the partners assembled on the impressive circular staircase in the firm’s 5-story atrium. The firm had remodeled an eleven-story building built in 1886 (below) into a modern law office showplace housing 90 lawyers in its Omaha headquarters.

           In 1974, I was the only member of the securities department of Kutak Rock. Actually, the municipal bond department was called the Securities Department and my department was called the Corporate Finance Department. In time, I served as Chairman of a National Corporate Finance Department. We had more than 50 lawyers specializing in Securities and Exchange Commission practice and related matters.

           In those days, we felt more like Kutak’s disciples than his partners. He had a way of convincing people that we could achieve the impossible. And then he made us believe in ourselves enough so that we did, in fact, do it. He was a man who had a single purpose in life. That purpose was to build the greatest law firm on Earth and the first 1,000 lawyer firm. It was to be a place where everyone worked together in harmony with mutual respect for each other. To be sure, there was plenty of backbiting and backstabbing. It wasn’t Shangri La. But Kutak wanted it to be. And so did we. He had the vision, and we believed in it. By 2004, more than a dozen firms had crossed the 1,000 mark.

           Kutak spent a lot of his efforts on recruiting. He would identify a top performer at the IRS, at the SEC, in the Department of Justice, or at a leading law firm, and would go after that person like a top college coach recruiting a player. He was successful in persuading lots of very good lawyers to relocate their families to Omaha. For this reason I was endowed with strong associates, who became strong partners. It wasn’t until many years after his death that I came to fully appreciate Bob Kutak. We clashed frequently, as many business associates do, but we always had respect for each other. I respected Bob’s magnetic evangelism. He respected my creativity. He was a visionary. I was an innovator. He was a statesman. I was an eccentric inventor and tinkerer with the law.

           Bob Kutak had a fatal heart attack in 1983 at age 50. A number of lawyers left the firm, myself included. I formed America First Companies in 1984 and left the firm in 1985. In 2004, the firm was over 375 attorneys with offices in 17 cities.

           I could never have accomplished what I did by myself. I have a quirky mind. I need to bounce ideas off people. “Hey, does this sound crazy, or what?” I need people attending to the details I find tedious. I didn’t invent all of the great things that the firm did. There were lots of talented people who contributed new ideas. But this is my story (and I’m stickin’ to it!).