“And it’s worth more in exposure to me to just blow the lid on this thing. A few million dollars doesn’t move the needle for me. I’m just being really frank with you … I’ll go take $10 billion off your client’s market cap. But I’m not f—ing around.”

Avenatti demanded more than $20 million from Nike while keeping his client in the dark, testimony revealed. He said the company should hire him and another prominent attorney representing Franklin, Mark Geragos, to conduct an internal investigation.

A lawyer trying to extort a fortune from a deep pocket target. The things that go on in this world. [Stephen Rex Brown, New York Daily News;

Jury finds Avenatti guilty in $20 million Nike extortion attempt is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Also on Monday, Nevada said it would withdraw from the lawsuit in exchange for early deployment of the next generation of wireless in the state, creation of 450 jobs for six years and a $30 million donation to be distributed by Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford and aimed at helping women and minorities, Ford’s office said.

How blatant can you get? The best touch, of course, is the $30 million fund with which to ingratiate lucky beneficiaries around the state. (“The recipients of these grants for the use of the charitable contribution will be at the discretion of Nevada’s attorney general” — that is, the same AG Ford who filed and settled the state’s case, and from whose press release is excerpted that sentence.) It looks a lot like the familiar cozytown set-up in many cities in which permission to build a large development or win a public contract just might call for a hefty donation to a local nonprofit with ties to the mayor and council.

Notwithstanding the best efforts from some quarters to develop per se rules in hopes of generating clear and predictable legal outcomes, antitrust law remains a world of subjective interpretation in which government office-holders are left with great discretion regarding how and against whom to wield enforcement power. Whether you want to call it logrolling or use a less flattering term like “extortion,” the temptation is to trade off antitrust leniency for some of the other sorts of favors business might be able to render government actors.

All of which brings us to presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s and other candidates’ new proposals for antitrust, which a CNBC headline accurately reports (as to Warren’s) “would dramatically enhance government control over the biggest U.S. companies.” In particular, the proposals would invite the government far more deeply into oversight of business practices, including refusal to share “essential” facilities with competitors, pricing goods below the cost of production, and much more, as well as mergers and acquisitions.

It’s hard to know whether Sen. Warren sees all this new arbitrary discretion as a bug, or a feature, in her enormous plan. Either way, an accumulation of power that tempting will sooner or later attract appointees seeking either a political whip hand over the U.S. corporate sector, a source of payouts like that in Nevada, or both. [cross-posted from Cato at Liberty]

Nevada’s antitrust deal sheds light on Elizabeth Warren’s big plan is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Two tweets 47 minutes apart tell quite a story [Joe Weisenthal] The complaint filed in New York also describes an unnamed co-cpnspirator, who is not charged with any wrongdoing; Wall Street Journal reporting says that figure is California-based celebrity attorney Mark Geragos, a longtime Overlawyered favorite who has lately represented Jussie Smollett and Colin Kaepernick and until this week was billed as a legal commentator at CNN, where Avenatti too has made frequent guest appearances.

As in many other situations, the question arises: what would the legal difference be between extortion and ordinary lawyer behavior in settlement negotiations? Part of the answer is that Avenatti was alleged to be angling for his own, rather than the client’s advantage. From p. 9 of the New York complaint:

Comments Jeb Kinnison on Twitter: “Must observe the forms. If only he’d started a nonprofit to take the payoffs and pay him a salary…” And another reader is reminded of the 2013 Paula Deen episode [American Thinker, earlier]

Celebrity attorney Michael Avenatti charged with extortion is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

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