Wise guys say Amazon could be the first $1 trillion company. It could. It’s put out giant retailers and mom-and-pop Seattle grocers (free bananas). Not held to any earnings standard: 250 P/E, stock up 31% this year. The D in Disrupter. And last week Bezos Inc. unleashed a bidding war for its second HQ. The RFP asks for great Unis, public trans, a tech-savvy workforce that can be poured onto freeways, AND tells suitors “think creatively.” San Diego is in. As Michael Corleone said, “It’s the right move.” SD needs to diversify its economy. Dallas and Michigan are in. The retailer claims the 2nd campus could bring 50,000 jobs. Do we want in? Amazon’s already in OC—250K sq-ft of office and ind’l in Irvine—and there are these two big projects in Santa Ana owned by this swashbuckling real estate guy. Meets all specs. Get ‘em Big Mike—and if you land the Big Kahuna, a Starbucks for colleague Mark Mueller? As Virgil Sollozzo said: “I’m not that clever”…
Lunch with Ed Susolik and Dan Callahan, managing partners of one of CA’s most successful litigation houses, SA-based Callahan and Blaine, became a lesson in Con Law and OC history. They call their firm a boutique. Just litigation. 28 lawyers, none under 10 years’ experience. Riches in the niches. Callahan secured one of the biggest PI settlements in U.S. history, $50 million on behalf of two Dana Point joggers left quadriplegics by a hit-and-run driver. Plaintiffs Carol Daniel and Stacy Neria and their lawyer noted a very wide, unmarked bike lane. Could easily be mistaken for a car lane. The city had been urged to fix the section of PCH—by Dan Callahan two years prior.
“I’m friends with both women and their families to this day,” Callahan told me. “It was a case every law firm passed on, the complexity of suing a city.”
Our 1st amendment is close to absolute. Susolik found an exception. Tony Lam was the first Vietnamese-born elected pol in the U.S. when voters put him on the Westminster council. Genial fella. Susolik thought Lam was wronged when protestors targeted him and his restaurant because a nearby store displayed a North Vietnamese flag. The lawyer found case law to support a rare 1st amendment trump card—the right to vote. By targeting Lam, protesters were usurping voters’ rights, voters who had freely elected Lam to public office. Judge Robert Monarch agreed and mandated a 900-ft buffer zone. The injunction saved Lam’s restaurant. The two litigators are also worried for their profession. “Law-school applications down by half in the last decade” Susolik noted. “Yes, there’s a good economy, but there’s more at work here.”
Late word. Bren is in.
Reelin’ in the Years: Spent last weekend overplaying “Can’t Buy a Thrill.” Thank you for the music, Walter Becker.
