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Merkle & Magri
"Mad Dog" and "The
Invisible Man"
(Originally published in Pinellas County Review,
December 1994)
By Bob
Andelman
If they were superheroes, we'd know them as
"Mad Dog", "Joe" and "The Invisible
Man."
But, alas, they're mere mortals, lawyers at
that, recognized professionally as Merkle & Magri.
Perhaps it's unfair that Joe Magri and Ward
Meythaler are always perceived to be in Bob Merkle's shadow,
in that both are accomplished former Assistant U.S. Attorneys
in Tampa. On the other hand, after six years as partners in private
practice, Magri and Meythaler enjoy their relative anonymity
as much as Merkle enjoys the hot klieg lights of controversy
to which he seems preternaturally drawn.
"You really can't sum up this firm by
looking at the personality of any one of us," Magri said.
"There's never any media walking into my hearings, asking
what I've said to (Clearwater City Councilman) Fred Thomas
at a roast. I don't miss that; I don't want that as part
of my job."
Merkle, of course, is the controversial former
U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida best-known for
his aggressive prosecution and conviction of Colombian drug lord
Carlos Lehder. Other notches on his belt include the corruption
trials of Hillsborough County Commission members and Nelson Italiano,
a once prominent player in Democratic party politics; the indictment
and conviction of former Detroit Tigers pitcher Denny McLain;
perjury charges against State Rep. Elvin Martinez; the investigation
of former Hillsborough State Attorney E.J. Salcines; and the
prosecution of Tampa plastic surgeon Dr. Dale B. Dubin on child
pornography charges.
He didn't win 'em all, but Merkle certainly
left his mark on the office. Replaced by a succession of less
colorful characters, some people still think he's the
U.S. Attorney.
Shortly after leaving office in 1988, he challenged
then political novice Connie Mack for the Republican nomination
for U.S. Senate, a remarkably verbose campaign in which Merkle
dubbed his opponent "Cardboard Connie." Merkle lost,
but while he was in the race, there was never a dull moment.
Recently, private attorney Merkle, 50, made
the daily news as the defendant in a traffic fracas. He was charged
with misdemeanor battery and acquitted following a highly-publicized
trial. The jurors on his case actually wrote that he "was
fully justified in his actions in the defense of his family and
himself" and the whole gang dropped by his house afterward
to celebrate his innocence. (Merkle said it cost his firm $250,000
in lost billings to defend him; He plans to file a civil suit
shortly.)
Merkle's nickname, "Mad Dog" - acquired
during his days in the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office
because of his unmatched prosecutorial zeal - returned to haunt
him during his own criminal case. That's why Merkle tap-dances
between embracing the nickname and orphaning it.
"It's a good image to play off of,"
he said. "If people think you're a raving maniac and then
they encounter thoughtfulness and a sense of humor, it makes
them more receptive."
The downside of being the "Mad Dog,"
however, is endless. "We don't have a wide base of institutional
clients. I'm still not invited to country clubs. I'm not asked
to sit on the boards of banks," Merkle said. It also has
an impact on the type of clients who want his help.
"Because of that image, I get called
by people who've been screwed by the system," Merkle said.
"The perception is there that I will buck the system and
not be intimidated. They say, 'Only you can help me.'
It gets where your heart breaks for them. This firm has done
more pro bono, proportionately, than anybody else. A lot of it
was not planned. A client has no money and I stick with it."
Another drawback is that his fire & brimstone
act known far and wide, even by judges and opposing counsel who
have never actually seen Merkle in action.
"I can walk into a courtroom and see
a look pass across a judge's face - a judge who has never seen
me in court - and the judge is thinking, 'When's this guy going
to start throwing tables?' " Merkle said. "I have to
cope with that, but it's not hard to disabuse."
Attending a deposition in his own case, the
prosecution asked the judge to have an armed in a deposition
room and videotape the process. "The prosecutor said to
me at one time, 'If you hurt me, I'll have you arrested',"
according to Merkle. "Absolutely no basis."
Merkle doesn't give himself enough credit.
His mere demeanor and presence can be intimidating in a friendly
setting, let alone an antagonistic one.
"If you're a litigator, a hard-nosed,
hard-ass, you want the reputation," said "The Razor,"
St. Petersburg attorney Allen Allweiss, himself a former Merkle
& Magri client. "It's not being an intimidator, but
you're there to tell a judge you're right. You're raising the
flag. Merkle's definitely a person who gets other lawyers' attention."
"Have you ever watched him in a courtroom?"
asked Clearwater attorney Jeff Albinson, an associate at Merkle
& Magri from 1989-91. "Unbelievable. And he can be intentionally
confrontational. One time we were doing a trial in Orlando and
the judge allowed this witness to testify - first - who
we had never heard of. On cross-examination, Bob was able to
turn that witness around. It was a helluva cross. Right after
that, the judge had to break and take a call and the other side
made us an immediate offer to settle. It was unbelievable."
Denis deVlaming, a Clearwater criminal defense
attorney who represented Merkle in his assault case, has seen
the Jeckyll & Hyde sideshow that is Merkle in court.
"When he's not in front of a jury, people
might seem him be very aggressive," deVlaming said. "When
the jury comes in, you'll see a change in style. It's more than
being nice. He knows when the spotlight is on, what the jury
might react to. He knows the difference between what a jury or
a judge might respond to. He knows what sells in front of a jury."
Even his own partners understand the perception
of the Mad Dog, if not necessarily endorsing the appellation.
"The fact of the matter is, that's Bob,"
Magri said. "Bob is not going through this world, this room,
or any situation, quietly. He's a man of strong beliefs. He's
a good man who tries to do what he feels is right. In these circumstances,
every now and again, you're going to tick people off. Bob doesn't
mind doing that."
A career government employee who spent 1971-77
as a trial attorney with U.S. Department of Justice and 1977-81
as assistant state attorney for Florida's Sixth Judicial Circuit
on his way to being tabbed by Ronald Reagan as U.S. Attorney
for the Middle District of Florida in 1982, Merkle had never
been in private practice. But that's the alien territory in which
he found himself by late 1988, struggling in downtown Clearwater
as a sole practitioner without a huge staff and with a reticent
telephone system.
Before long he was joined in exile by his
former chief assistant, Magri. They formed a partnership and
relocated to fancy digs at Waterford Plaza on Rocky Point.
If Magri is the named but little-known partner,
where does that leave the firm's third and final partner, Meythaler?
He's the Invisible Man, the third partner in what most people
think is a two-man firm.
"He likes that, Ward does," Albinson
said. "He's a very unselfish person. He has no ego problems."
Meythaler joined the firm a few months after
Merkle and Magri formed it; not too late in the big picture to
change the sign on the door or the language on letterhead, but
all three agreed Merkle, Magri & Meythaler didn't have the
same ring to it as Merkle & Magri. And Meythaler prefers
the giant shadow cast by Merkle.
So what kind of firm do the three Ms run?
Complex civil litigation, primarily, although with a former U.S.
Attorney for the Middle District of Florida (Merkle), a former
Acting U.S. Attorney (Magri), and a former Assistant U.S. Attorney
(Meythaler), there's no lack of demand for their services as
criminal defenders, either.
Magri, whose biggest client is Anchor Glass,
specializes in civil litigation - business, insurance coverage
and product liability. He handles a few personal injury cases.
Meythaler's practice mixes civil and criminal. "The civil
tends to be plaintiff product liability and fraud cases,"
he says. "And like Bob, I do some criminal work and want
to do more, once we get caught up on our existing civil."
Unlike Merkle, whose entire career before
this firm was in public service, Magri and Meythaler both left
comfortable, well-paying jobs in private firms to join the U.S.
Attorney's office in Tampa. Magri, a graduate of Fairfield University
in Connecticut who received his J.D. from the University of California,
Hastings School of Law, specialized in commercial, insurance
and administrative litigation for Cummings & Lockwood at
their Connecticut and Washington, D.C. offices. The firm was
co-founded by Homer Cummings, Attorney General under FDR. He
joined Merkle in 1982.
"The firm had a number of people who
had gone in and out of the Department of Justice," Magri
recalled. "I had this real belief that I'd go back to private
practice. I liked it. Our firm in Connecticut represented big
corporations. There was a different perspective. For example,
I did all of Texaco's upstream work. So when I left, I thought
I might come back in three years. But in Tampa, we got up to
our asses in cases. We were doing things that were fun."
When Merkle left office, Magri moved into
his position as Acting U.S. Attorney from June 1988 through September
1988.
"Joe is a great lawyer," Merkle
said. "He evokes tremendous respect wherever he foes. He's
thoughtful, articulate - he's got it all."
Outside the courtroom, Merkle said its not
his mercurial temper the public needs fear - it's Magri's. "I'm
the one who's cool on the golf course," he said. "Joe's
the one who throws his clubs."
Meythaler, a graduate of Iowa State University
who received his law degree from Harvard, was the youngest person
ever to make partner at Chicago's Keck, Mahin & Cate, a firm
of 90 lawyers at the time, 150 now. He spent 11 years with that
firm before walking away from a partnership in 1984 to be an
assistant in the Middle District of Florida under Merkle.
"In Chicago, I was doing general litigation
with very little trial work. I wanted to do more trial work.
I also wanted to live in Florida. And I wasn't married then so
I had less financial incentive to stay. I took an enormous cut
in pay to work for the government. I decided it was more important
to do what I wanted to do."
Once settled in Florida, Meythaler never thought
about going back to Chicago. And when he finally left the Middle
District office a few months after Merkle and Magri, his first
choice was to continue working with the men who had made the
law challenging again.
Meythaler has many fans of his work, among
them attorney Allen Allweiss. While Merkle got all the attention
in the press for representing Allweiss against Home Shopping
Network, Meythaler actually worked most closely with Allweiss.
"Ward is, in my view, a fabulous lawyer,"
Allweiss said. "He is a very understated, extremely competent
and very bright lawyer. A great lawyer. He'll never blow his
own horn. He doesn't pound his chest. He's been overshadowed
by Bob, but Ward is a very significant person in that law office."
According to legend, Meythaler arrives at
the office daily at 4 a.m. It's a work habit that goes back to
his days as a national champion, All-American gymnast at Iowa
State University.
"He's a Harvard guy. And he's a real
perfectionist," Jeff Albinson said. "He insists that
everything he does is the best quality he can do. I've seen him
rewrite and rewrite things until the secretaries wanted to kill
him."
Merkle & Magri, the firm, is fleshed out
by associates as different as partners Merkle, Magri and Meythaler
themselves. "I've got all stripes in here, Democrats, Republicans,"
Merkle says. "I may even have an atheist or two. I don't
care. All I care is that they comport themselves as professionals."
Their offices on the 11th floor - and ancillary
space on the second - is jammed with 10 lawyers and support staff,
but the partners are looking for at least one more associate
in the near future.
"I prefer the small firm," Meythaler
said. "The question is, how small?"
"I don't know that our goal is numbers,"
Magri agreed. "I'd like to see our firm be a capable, respected
firm that has good cases and good clients. I think we have some
of these things, some more than others. But there's always an
ability to be better."
Merkle said adjusting to life in private practice
after a career on the government's payroll has been a distinct
learning experience.
"Dealing with individual clients is a
lot different than dealing with an institutional client such
as the State of Florida or the United States of America,"
he said. "As a prosecutor, I dealt with real victims of
crime. But (in private practice) it took me a while to figure
out what I could and couldn't do in terms of taking on the world.
It was hard to say no. That kind of shortcoming can put you out
of business so you're not in a position to help anybody."
Will politics ever again beckon Merkle? He
recently turned up at a roast of Clearwater City Councilman Fred
Thomas in the guise of God, singing his recently penned parody
of President Clinton and the First Lady. It seems the more eagerly
he doth protest, the greater the impression he's preparing for
the inevitable.
"A lot of people ask, and I'm not foreclosing
the possibility, but I have no burning ambition," Merkle
said. "There's a lot of reasons I have not gotten back into
a political situation. All of them make a lot of sense to me.
I have a responsibility to this firm, to my family, to my kids.
I don't have the money or the political (organization) to launch
a campaign. I don't have the burning desire to see my name in
lights. When you think about it, what sense does it make to put
your future in the hands of an electorate that doesn't know who
or what you are?
"The day may well come that I run for
something," Merkle said, "and there's a lot of people
out there who are afraid I'm gonna do it. I could mount a campaign
for any office, state or national, and bring the same credibility
I brought against Mack - my group of issues and reasoned debate.
But that kind of approach gets demolished by the slick demagoguery
of TV commercials. And who's going to listen?
"I'm just going about the business of
being a lawyer right now," he said.
Bay Area Law Firm Profile
Firm: Merkle & Magri
Founded: 1989
Location: Tampa
Number of partners: 3; Bob Merkle; Joe Magri; Ward Meythaler
Associates: 7; Cherie A. Parker; Ralph L. Gonzales; Ann
E. Barlow; Gerald J. Roble; Dawn Weiger O'Neill; Juliet Teresa
Wyne; David J. Plante
Major client: Anchor Glass
Areas of law: Civil litigation and criminal defense
Big lawsuits: Allen Allweiss v. Home Shopping Network
Revenue: "Our billings have gone up every year,"
Merkle said.
end
©2000,
All rights reserved. No portion may be reproduced without the
express written permission of the author.
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