There have been so many comebacks in the 40-year career of mercurial attorney Pierce O’Donnell that spectacular reversals of fortune are almost expected.
Charged with campaign finance law violations – twice – he served time and his law license was suspended. But just in the last year, he got a new job with a national firm, brought in Shelly Sterling as a client and helped broker the sale of the Los Angeles Clippers. Then, only days later, he filed for personal bankruptcy.
Now, due to get a $2.3 million payday for his role representing Sterling in the Clippers deal, O’Donnell has seen all but $200,000 claimed by the bankruptcy trustee managing his case. A hearing next week will determine whether $2.1 million of his Clippers bonus will be used to help pay his creditors, who are owed nearly $7.5 million.
“I won the greatest cases of my career while I was under this dark cloud,” O’Donnell said in an interview last week.
Indeed, O’Donnell’s career has been marked by dark clouds that have cast a shadow over what otherwise would be a shining array of professional accomplishments. And the drama that has swirled around him has pulled in large swaths of the L.A. legal community.
The bankruptcy hearing slated for early next month is expected to confirm that most of his Clippers bonus will go toward repaying creditors, many of whom are fellow L.A. lawyers O’Donnell hired after he was charged with violating campaign finance laws – once by the Department of Justice, once by the Los Angeles County district attorney.
The DA charged O’Donnell in 2004 with making illegal contributions to former Mayor James Hahn’s campaign in 2000 and 2001. He pleaded no contest in 2006, paid a $155,200 fine and was prohibited from contributing to any political fundraiser for three years.
The federal charges stemmed from violations for reimbursing then-employees for contributing to the 2004 presidential campaign of John Edwards. Those violations sent him to prison for two months – he was released in July 2012 – and saw him barred from practicing law for six months, a suspension that ended a year ago.
Big name, big problems
With his legal troubles seemingly behind him, O’Donnell began 2014 by trying to resurrect his career.
“When I was reinstated in January, I started going around looking for jobs in L.A.,” he said. “Basically, I didn’t get any interviews because people were worried about the controversy of my legal problems.”
But O’Donnell still had relationships, and in the competitive world of big-money law practices, important connections can outweigh most baggage. Some major firms, said Delia Swan, president of West L.A. legal recruiting firm Swan Legal Search, are more than willing to hire accomplished attorneys despite any discipline records.
“If there’s a lot of clients involved, the likelihood of it being overlooked is greater,” Swan said. “Basically, if you have business, you’re in.”
That appeared to be the mind-set at Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger. The law firm was anything but deterred from hiring the renowned lawyer, welcoming him to its Century City office in April.
Bob Baradaran, Greenberg Glusker’s managing partner in Los Angeles, offered nothing but praise for O’Donnell.
“Further demonstrated by his representation of Shelly Sterling during the sale of the Clippers, Pierce is an outstanding litigator and attorney who serves his clients with the utmost commitment and distinction,” Baradaran said in a written statement. “We feel lucky to have him practicing at Greenberg Glusker.”
Indeed, it appears – at least thus far – that in the court of public opinion, the firm’s investment in O’Donnell is paying off. Online legal news service Law360 crowned O’Donnell an “MVP” of the year for his work on the Clippers litigation, and the legal newspaper Daily Journal ranked him among the top entertainment lawyers in California last year.
“Greenberg Glusker took a chance on me,” O’Donnell said. “They researched what had happened with the bar, but here I am. And 29 days later, Mrs. Sterling walked in.”
Sterling said last week that she was unaware of O’Donnell’s record at first. The Clippers scandal erupted and escalated quickly, and an out-of-state lawyer she knew recommended O’Donnell. And she is pleased he did.
“I needed someone right away; it was becoming an unbelievable case,” she said. “Everybody has trauma in their life, but I picked him because of his ability and I stayed with him because of his ability and mannerisms – not because of what his past was.”
The Clippers’ whopping $2 billion sale closed Aug. 12, putting yet another feather in O’Donnell’s cap, but his celebration didn’t last long. Eight days later, he filed for bankruptcy.
Not many people would say the decision to file for bankruptcy is easy but O’Donnell said it was especially tough for him because a lot of his creditors are his friends.
“I really wanted to avoid it,” he said. “I had avoided it for a couple of years, but finally I just couldn’t avoid it anymore.”
Paying friends
The filing came as the pressure from the bills he incurred fighting the criminal charges became too much to satisfy.
The Justice Department had indicted him on felony charges for his illegal campaign contributions in 2008, and a conviction would have automatically disbarred him from practicing law forever. O’Donnell, not ready to give up his profession, said he hired the best lawyers he could to reduce the charges to misdemeanors, a more manageable penalty that led to his imprisonment and temporary suspension from the State Bar of California but not a permanent disbarment.
“I made a mistake, but I didn’t think it should have been a terminal sanction,” he said. “So I spent millions of dollars on lawyers.”
Before he filed for bankruptcy, O’Donnell said he called each of his creditors. No one was angry, but instead offered their condolences.
Among the creditors is crisis communications executive Michael Sitrick, whom O’Donnell hired in 2008 for advice as he dealt with the federal charges. Court records show the lawyer owes him $140,000.
Sitrick, too, was forgiving – at least personally.
“It wasn’t personal,” Sitrick said. “I like Pierce. I’m sure he’s not happy with what happened and I feel bad for him.”
Also among the creditors are his ex-wife, Dawn O’Donnell, owed more than $2.1 million, and the IRS, which is due more than $1 million. The largest collective debt, some $3 million, is due to a dozen fellow lawyers.
Dark days
A graduate of both Georgetown and Yale law schools, O’Donnell has won numerous high-profile cases in his career, but the one he’s most proud of ultimately ended in defeat.
Representing thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims in a case against the Army Corps of Engineers, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled in his favor in 2009, determining the government was liable for a lot of the flood damage because it failed to maintain a major navigation channel.
The ruling was reversed in 2012, but O’Donnell still believes he gave the best oral argument of his career on that case.
“I’m proud of the work we did in Katrina,” he said. “Nobody gave us a snowball’s chance in hell to ever win that case.”
The case, filed shortly after the hurricane’s storm surge flooded New Orleans in August 2005, came just as legal trouble over his campaign contributions was looming back home.
Looking back, O’Donnell now chalks up his past legal trouble as experiences that ultimately made him a better lawyer.
“I got so beat down and so depressed,” he said. “I had lost sight of what I did and who I was. The journey was going to ultimately be worthwhile, but that’s hard to see when you’re at the bottom of the barrel. … I’m a better lawyer for it. It was a transformative experience, the whole 10 years.”
Today, despite disputing the bankruptcy trustee’s claim on his Clippers’ bonus, O’Donnell said things are starting to look up again. He credits much of that to his new wife, Carmen Licea-Elliott. The two married in September 2013, four months after they met online, and O’Donnell said she has helped him stay positive during some of his darkest days.
“She wouldn’t let me have any pity parties,” he said. “She said, ‘Remember, you’re Pierce O’Donnell.’ I had forgotten that.”
Despite the dramatic highs and lows of his career, O’Donnell remains convinced he hasn’t yet hit the peak of his legal career.
In March, he’s slated to litigate another high-profile trail involving Sterling. This time, she is suing V. Stiviano, the woman whose relationship with Donald Sterling triggered the sale of the Clippers to former Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. Shelly Sterling is seeking to recoup millions of dollars she said her estranged husband spent on Stiviano.
Though Sterling is among O’Donnell’s few clients, he remains confident that more work will come his way.
“I’m not there yet, by no means,” he said. “I may be 67, but I feel 47. I don’t think I’ve slowed down and I don’t have plans to.”
