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Allweiss & Allweiss
"They See a Clone of His Dad"
(Originally published in Pinellas County Review,
November 1995)
By Bob
Andelman
Tampa attorney Barry Cohen's daughter, now
a successful attorney herself in Chicago, once joked that she
could never join her father's firm because he wouldn't change
the name to "Cohen & Father."
Michael D. Allweiss, 31, junior partner in
the freshly minted St. Petersburg firm of Allweiss & Allweiss,
knows just how she feels.
"Clearly," he said, "the second
'Allweiss' is me."
That's because everyone in legal circles knows
his legendary father, "The Razor," a.k.a. Allen P.
Allweiss. The senior Allweiss, 58, has been shaking up the Tampa
Bay legal community across four decades now in public, private
and corporate service. By reputation alone, when the Allweiss
men hung out their shingle in March, they became one of the best-known
boutique firms in Pinellas County.
But popular? That's where the first Allweiss
needs the assistance of the second.
"Allen is a real Type-AAA personality,"
said his friend and former co-hort in the Pinellas State Attorney's
office, Fred Zinober. "I see a lot of similarities between
him and Mike - he's got his dad's basic aggressiveness, for example
- but I see a lot of his mother in Mike. Real caring, sensitivity
that I don't see in his father. Quite friendly."
At that, Zinober laughs. "A lot of people don't see that
because they don't know his mother. They see a clone of his dad."
What's the big deal about Allen Allweiss?
He's one of those love 'em or hate 'em guys, no in-between.
"Tough as nails," Zinober said.
"I always found Allen good to work with, honest and straight-forward.
But when you get up against him in court, he'd fight you like
a dog. I'd get up and quote cases and it would turn out Allen
prosecuted the case. One case, Allen let me go on and
on. Then he got up and said, 'I prosecuted that case. Let me
tell you what really happened.' "
It was just over a decade ago that one of
Allweiss's own criminal defense clients shot him four times at
point-blank range in the arms and chest. In 1990, he shocked
friends and observers by resigning as chief assistant state attorney
for Pasco County to run a business arm of the Home Shopping Network.
He and HSN co-founder Roy Speer were former law and business
partners.
The HSN experience ended badly three years
later. On his second day on the job, president and CEO Gerald
F. Hogan fired Allweiss, then the company's general counsel,
for allegedly revealing confidential information. Allweiss was
immediately escorted from Home Shopping headquarters by security
guards, unable to even clean out his desk.
"We found a gun and two boxes of bullets,"
according to HSN outside counsel Pat Anderson of St. Petersburg-based
Rahdert & Anderson. (Since being shot, Allweiss is known
throughout the legal community for carrying a gun.) "We
could never figure out why Allen had two boxes of bullets
in his desk at HSN. I mean, what went through his mind when he
reached for that second box?"
The day after Allweiss was fired, someone
laid a single dead rose in his former parking space. He returned
fire by filing a "whistleblower" lawsuit, alleging
he was fired over attempts to reveal improprieties in HSN's executive
suite.
A nasty round of public relations and legal
warfare resulted, during which The Razor was represented by another
man with a telling nickname, Bob "Mad Dog" Merkle.
The charges were eventually settled out of court. Allweiss now
declines to discuss HSN at all.
"He violated the most precious thing
that they teach you in law school: 'Don't violate client confidentiality',"
Anderson said. "There was not a single lawyer involved in
that case that did not think he should not be severely sanctioned,
regardless of representation. You don't do to a client what Allweiss
did."
But while Allweiss can't or won't talk about
his HSN tenure, Bob Sutton will. Sutton was president of the
Home Shopping Network and, later, Silver King Broadcasting during
Allweiss's tenure at the company. Their offices were next door
to one another.
"I don't think there was anyone who worked
with him on the fifth floor who liked him. He was just a despicable
person," said Sutton, who most recently resigned as president
of the fledgling Golf Channel. "But he had Roy Speer's ear
and trust. If Roy hadn't listened to Allen, he'd still be running
HSN today."
Detractors and supporters of both Allweisses
can be found in the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office, where
Allen and Michael each served, although not concurrently.
"Allen was a bully, the kind of person
that chose to operate through intimidation," said a well-placed
source in the state attorney's office. "Most of us below
him could never understand why we had the guy here. We never
saw him as an asset.
"Michael was the same way," said
the source. "He would be physically intimidating of people.
He feels if he yells louder, he's righter."
And in this corner, for the defense, State
Attorney Bernie McCabe, whose years in the office overlapped
with both Allen and Michael. "What's the old cliché?
'The fruit doesn't fall too far from the tree.' It's true. They
both approach the law in a hard-nosed fashion."
That's pretty much the way all of the Allweisses'
defenders refer to them. They're seen as all-business, no-nonsense
fellas which may be what rubs some of their counterparts the
wrong way.
"Allen set a no-nonsense tone for whatever
office he was in," McCabe said. "That office would
share these same traits because that's what he would demand of
the people who worked for him."
For all the grousing about Allweiss, only
one complaint to the Florida Bar has ever stuck. On March 10,
1994, he was admonished by the Bar in response to a minor misconduct
charge regarding advertising. Allweiss declined to discuss the
case.
Say what you will about Allen Allweiss, but
Michael is damned proud to have him for a father - and now, a
partner.
"No. 1," he said, "he is by
far my best friend. No. 2, growing up in our house was always
exciting. I always knew what a great lawyer he was but when I
started practicing in 1988, I was always hearing it: 'If you're
half the lawyer he was . . . ' It was always a dream of mine,
after I cut my teeth, to work with my father."
"He knew that was what he wanted to do
and he made me do it," Allen said. "I was trying to
build a practice again after five years away."
"My idea wasn't to live off him,"
Michael said. "My interest was to build separate practices.
I came here with 5-1/2 years of experience. If I didn't know
how to be a lawyer by the time I got here, I wasn't going to
make it anyway."
Michael is the only one of Allweiss's three
children to follow him into law. One daughter, Robin, is an HSN
show host; the other, Kim, is an office manager in a doctor's
office.
And while everyone on the outside compares
Allweiss & Allweiss, inside the firm there is a dirty little
secret: Michael is a technophobe. When it came time to photograph
father and son for this story, Michael had law books spread out
all over a conference room table.
"You want an action shot?" he asked,
motioning to his books.
"Ahhh," moaned his father.
"I use a computer."
Thanks to his years at HSN, the senior Allweiss
is an active net surfer, a man who will live the rest of his
career at a computer terminal with the law found wherever compact
disks and a modem take him. His son, meanwhile, prefers books
to megabytes.
"I'm married to the computer," Allen
said. "It's a race anytime there's an issue - can I find
it on disk faster than he can find it in a book?" There's
no computer even in Michael's office. "He didn't use it
so I took it away from him and put it in my library at home,"
Allen said.
One thing the two share - besides law degrees
from the University of Miami - is a willingness to move around.
Allen's first job was in private industry, working for Allied
Products. He spent 1961-62 as the St. Petersburg city prosecutor
and when he wanted out of that job, began doing free work for
Robert E. Jagger's public defender's office. From 1963-73 he
maintained a private practice and was a part-time assistant state
attorney in the Sixth Judicial Circuit for Pinellas and Pasco
County - trying 125 featured cases - before going private full-time
in '73. Six years later, James T. Russell brought him back to
the State Attorney's Office and sicced him on organized crime.
A year later, he was back in private practice. In July 1988,
he returned to the state attorney's office as chief assistant
for the Pasco County division for - lessee - the third
time. Roy Speer hired him as HSN's executive vice president of
subsidiary operations in April 1990. He later added the title
of general counsel.
Michael, a graduate of Shorecrest High in
St. Petersburg and the University of Florida (accounting, '85),
joined Clearwater's Tew, Zinober, Barnes, Zimmet & Unice
in 1988, where Fred Zinober and others talked so much about "the
good ol' days" in the state attorney's office that Michael
had to try it. ("I probably did create a monster,"
Zinober said.) Russell hired him in '90 and he stayed through
'92. "I certainly didn't receive any favoritism as Allen
Allweiss's son," he said. "I worked my tail off."
He became a lead trial lawyer in 12 months and tried 35 cases
before friends at Fowler, White, Gillen, Boggs, Villareal &
Banker, P.A., pushed the partners to hire him.
"He was extremely well-regarded,"
said Donald Cox, Michael's supervisor and senior partner in Fowler,
White's business litigation department. "Michael is very
proud of his father and looks on his father as an outstanding
trial lawyer and I think Michael tries to live up to that."
Allen was still working at HSN when Fowler,
White hired Michael. That became significant later, when Allen
was fired, because Fowler, White represented HSN in certain matters.
"Michael never worked on any of that,"
Cox said. "After Allen left and started making all those
accusations, Michael was still here. I don't know if he had any
discomfort but he did leave shortly thereafter."
As far as he's concerned, Michael Allweiss
now has his dream job. The best part about working alongside
the old man?
"I've even been right a few times,"
Michael jokes.
"He's right a lot," Allen said.
"It's nice having somebody in the office who's smarter than
you are."
The senior partner was asked about his reputation
as a hardass, someone who rides roughshod over his subordinates.
"I don't yell at employees, but I'll
yell at him," Allen said, pointing at Michael. "But
he's not intimidated by me. And I'm not lording things over him.
We're both egotistical. Well, I don't think I'm egotistical.
But he does. Do we fight once in a while? Yes, we do. But I have
found him to be right on some issues."
"Whereas, in our prior, pre-professional
life, you rarely would have got an admission like that,"
Michael said, grinning.
BAY AREA FIRM FILE
Name: Allweiss & Allweiss, an
association of P.A.s
Founded: March 1994
Number of partners: 2
Major clients: Won't disclose. "That's confidential
information," Allen Allweiss said.
Areas of law: Allen Allweiss - litigation; personal injury,
criminal defense, domestic, divorce; corporate
Michael Allweiss - litigation; personal injury;
business; criminal defense
Big lawsuits: None
Revenues: Won't disclose
Location: St. Petersburg
end
©2000,
All rights reserved. No portion may be reproduced without the
express written permission of the author.
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