Chrysler Hearing Takes Toll on Dewey Associate, But Not Athletic Judge
The bankruptcy judge overseeing the Chrysler case is a marathon runner with experience handling the high-profile reorganizations of Enron and WorldCom.
The experience will likely well serve the 62-year-old judge, Arthur Gonzalez, who held his first hearing in the case today in a crowded courtroom. The heat apparently took its toll on an unidentified associate for Dewey & LeBoeuf, who collapsed as she was standing next to bankruptcy partner Martin Bienenstock, who represents Chrysler Financial, Reuters reports. She left with paramedics.
Reached by phone, Bienenstock refused to give the associate’s name, but he told the ABA Journal she is fine and is resting at home. He said the lawyer had some kind of virus earlier in the week, and went to court this morning on an empty stomach. The heat was apparently too much for her, and she collapsed. She went to the hospital on the recommendation of the medics, and was treated and released.
During the hearing, Chrysler lawyer Corinne Ball of Jones Day said the automaker’s 22 U.S. plants will be idled by the end of the day, according to an account in the New York Times. “I don’t think that any American can doubt these are extraordinary times,” she said. “We have to move at a high speed.”
By the end of the hearing, Gonzalez approved Chrysler’s request to continue to pay employee wages, salaries and incentives and gave interim approval for Chrysler to honor warranties and extended service guarantees, according to Reuters.
Lawyers describe Gonzalez as efficient, organized, a “straight arrow” and a judge who doesn’t shoot from the hip, according to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. One of his former clerks, George Angelich, told the Wall Street Journal he was always the first to arrive at the courthouse, sometimes showing up at 6 a.m.
Gonazalez taught math in a New York elementary school from 1969 to 1982, the Wall Street Journal says. He took evening classes at Fordham Law School, graduating in 1982, and then received an advanced degree in taxation from New York University law school. He worked as a staff lawyer for the Internal Revenue Service, as a lawyer in private practice, and as an assistant bankruptcy trustee before his appointment.
