In summer 2008, Baker & Hostetler made a lateral hire that didn’t attract much attention. The firm’s intellectual property group added a 65-year-old partner from Troutman Sanders who spent most of his career at a regional New Jersey firm. The unheralded recruit hardly seemed like the kind of hire who would make a huge difference to the Cleveland-based firm.
But sometimes life and business take unexpected turns. Who would have guessed three years ago that someone named Bernard Madoff would emerge as the most audacious Ponzi schemer who ever lived? And would anyone have imagined expertise in the rather obscure Securities Investor Protection Act would turn out to be so valuable? And who would have figured the lateral’s longtime friendship with another SIPA specialist would lead to the splashiest, most spectacular and most lucrative case Baker & Hostetler has ever handled?
