June 12, 2009 10:00 AM

Litigators of the Week: Glenn Kurtz and Thomas Lauria of White & Case

Posted by Andrew Longstreth

In the end, the Obama administration got what it wanted Tuesday when the Supreme Court refused to halt the sale of Chrysler's assets to Fiat. But not before sweating out a frantic opposition from Indiana state pension funds, represented by White & Case attorneys Thomas Lauria and Glenn Kurtz, who had argued that the deal shortchanged their creditor clients, and that the government had improperly given Chrysler bailout funds intended for financial institutions. On Monday our Litigators of the Week had secured a stay of the transaction from Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But the full Court ultimately found that the creditors had not met the criteria needed to justify further delaying the deal.

On Thursday we spoke with Kurtz, who claimed a moral victory. "I think we were at least successful in drawing attention to what really has to be considered one of the most significant legal issues that has been presented to a court in recent times," he said. "Unfortunately there was a great deal of pressure [to see the deal close], so we never really did get a meaningful review of the issues, but I do think it served to focus the country on what was going on here."

According to Kurtz, what was going on was an unprecedented suspension of bankruptcy rules. And those same issues will likely be raised in the GM bankruptcy, where Kurtz and Lauria will likely have a role. "I think we can be assured that GM will rely heavily on the blueprint that was used in the Chrysler case," he said. "One of the e-mails that was produced in the Chrysler litigation specifically noted that Treasury was viewing Chrysler as a guinea pig...for GM."

The Chrysler case raised the blood pressure of followers and supporters on both sides. As The Wall Street Journal noted, Lauria's opponents had labeled him ridiculous and a terrorist. It was a role he relished. "I must admit, I'm enjoying the heck out of this," he told the Journal.

Kurtz also mentioned that he didn't have much time to read the criticism of his clients' position. By the time White & Case got involved in May, the firm had about 24 hours to mount an objection, Kurtz said, and seven days of discovery, which included hundreds of thousands of pages of documents. Once the three-day bankruptcy court hearing ended, a lightening-speed appellate schedule followed at the Second Circuit.

We asked Kurtz if he, too, enjoyed playing the role of pariah. He told us he missed much of the criticism. "I have received nothing but supportive e-mails from complete strangers," he said. "Maybe I missed the press that had a problem with [our position]...I was seeing an awful lot of concern in the marketplace about how these rulings would impact the capital markets going forward."

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