Likely Bailout Beneficiaries: Lawyers
Although proposed emergency legislation intended to rescue the struggling U.S. economy at a cost of some $700 billion hasn’t yet been enacted, attorneys are already jockeying for position to help corporations wend their way through an expected labyrinth of related rules and regulations.
Among those seeking a share of the legal work likely to result from the bailout bill is Bracewell & Giuliani, of which former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is a partner.
The firm announced yesterday in a press release that it is forming a multidisciplinary task force “to guide financial institutions, private investment funds, institutional investors and other market participants through the legislative, regulatory and enforcement challenges posed by the Troubled Asset Relief Act and other impending actions by Congress, the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the SEC.”
Other law firms almost undoubtedly will follow suit in tailoring their legal marketing to the $700 billion bailout plan, if they haven’t done so already, predicts Anthony Sabino, a law and business professor at St. John’s University.
“Mr. Giuliani and his partners will not be the only persons to profit from this,” he tells the Associated Press, referring to the Troubled Asset Relief Act. “He’s entitled to seize the opportunity. Certainly this will be a bonanza for those that advise the business community.”
